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11 



IN COLOMBIA 

Maude Mwell Williams 





Class _JEL^2JZ_7 
Book -WT L 

GopigM 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE LEAST OF THESE— 
IN COLOMBIA 



1: 



Cesar, who has since developed leprosy. 




" Orchids, carnations and ferns, making fairyland of our upper corridor. 




A group of boys, Colegio Americano, Bogota. 



THE LEAST OF THESE- 
IN COLOMBIA 

BY 

MAUDE NEWELL WILLIAMS 

ILLUSTRATED 



" We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the 
weak, and not to please ourselves." 




New York Chicago 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



,w? 



Copyright, 1918, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



- //j. 



New York: 158; Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 **R *. Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 FaVernoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 



®UAm$4$7 



"Vi/G,/. 



TO MY HUSBAND, 
THE MISSIONARY 



FOREWORD 

THIS little book is not abstract and philo- 
sophical; it is concrete and specific. 
If you wish to learn of the work being done 
by missionaries in Colombia, this will not help you, 
for it does not describe or recount that work ; if you 
seek to know of the resources, industries and pos- 
sibilities of Colombia, look elsewhere, for they are 
not so much as mentioned here. 

This little book is exclusive. It might have told of 
the educated, refined, Spanish peoples of Latin 
America, but it does not; it might have described 
the increasing and interesting artisan class, but it 
does not; it might have treated of the agricultural 
class — so much is there to be told of them, — but it 
does not. Only of servants, and not of all servants, 
not even of our neighbors' servants, of whom we 
have known much; of our servants, yet not of all 
those who have served us; of a few, then, of our 
servants, is the book written. 

And the object? That the thing we Anglo Saxons 
of North America have so far failed to do, we may 
be helped a little in learning to do ; to understand 
our Latin American neighbors. To do that we must 
see them exactly as they are, and not as we think 
they ought to be ; we must form a more correct con- 
ception of their environment than most of us now 
possess. 

The object is worthy, this little collection of nar- 
ratives, insignificant. Yet these are true stories of 

7 



8 FOREWORD 

real people, and should possess a value in revealing 
to us the people. If anyone is helped to see them as 
they are — these servants of Colombia, typical of so 
large a class, — with the difficulties, the limitations, 
the impossibilities of their present lives, I shall feel 
rewarded for my venture. 

M. N. W. 
Baraboo, Wis. 



CONTENTS 



I DOMINGA 13 

II Rosario 17 

in pabla 27 

IV Cleofa ...... 40 

V Bautista 46 

VI La Senorita Bertilda Lopez . . 51 

VII Rosario's Vacation .... 57 

VIII Maria Rodriguez .... 61 

IX Cesar 65 

X Barbara 75 

XI Encarnacion 82 

XII Luis 89 

XIII Visits • 94 

XIV Elvira and Luis .... 101 

XV Socorro 110 

XVI Carmen 117 

XVII In the Country . . . 126 

XVIII Cooks 131 

XIX Two Marias v . . .141 

XX Luis Leaves Our Service . .146 

XXI Eldemira 152 

XXII Elvira 159 

XXIII Maria Jesus 169 

XXIV Jova . : 175 

XXV Colombian Servants . . . 182 



V 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 

Cesar, who has since developed leprosy . . Title u 
Orchids, carnations and ferns, in our upper Cor- 
ridor Title ^ 

A group of boys, Colegio Americano, Bogota . Title 

Carrying sugar-cane 18 ^ 

Taking wood to the city below . . . . 18 ^ 

Milk-vendors 40^ 

Rural homes . 40 l 

Four hundred years of Spanish Civilization and 

yet 40 

Bertilda and the " Siwash " 62 V 

Maria Rodriguez, presiding at Small Son's third- 
birthday fiesta 62 : 

Maria Jesus escorts the children to the park . 62 
Teresa, the only Colombia servant with negro 

blood ever with us 62 

" The roofs of the houses of a whole block are 

joined together at all sorts of angles " . . 110 v 

A Street. Scene . 110 

Valentine 132 t 

Hulling corn for Arepas (corn-cakes) . . . 132 ! 

Eldemira and the children in the country . . 152 « 

Bautista with three-days-old Small Son . . 152 v 

A wood-cart . • 1*76 '* 

A saw-mill . .. ;. ..... 1*76 



DOMINGA 

BOGOTA sits placidly nearly two miles above 
the sea. It cuddles against mountains rearing 
their crests two thousand feet above the 
city, dominating the vast level plain that stretches 
away at their base. 

Although near the equator this, because of its 
elevation, is " tierra fria," cold country. The air 
produces a peculiar light-headed sensation; you are 
almost certain that, if you could raise your arms 
and flap them a little, you could sail away to the 
clouds so intimately near. Chill and clammy are the 
houses into which no sun ever penetrates ; thin and 
hot is the air of the sunny streets. Thus we doff our 
shawls and overcoats when we go out and don them 
in the unheated houses. 

There are seasons when it rains every day. One 
afternoon a terrific tropical storm burst upon us in 
all its fury. Long sheets of water, wind-driven, 
fell athwart the world. The pounding of it on the 
open brick-floored patio was deafening; the dimness 
of it hid the faces of my pupils in a class-room of the 
Colegio Americano for Boys. 

Dominga, the little char-woman who came to us 
for a day or two each week, rushed unceremoniously 
into my presence. 

" My Senora, my Seiiora ! " she shrieked ; " those 
children, they are drowning, drowning ! " 

13 



U THE LEAST OF THESE 

" Dominga, what is the matter? What do you 
mean? " 

" My children, oh God, my children ! " sobbing 
convulsively. " It makes so much cold and dark in 
the hut and they both have much catarrh. This 
morning the sun appeared so bright, so hot, I left 
open the part above of that door. Window there 
is none; when I shut both halves of that door it is of 
a darkness like middle night in that room. I left 
those children in front of the door opened by the half 
above and now it is raining ; but how it rains ! They 
are wet even now and the hut is full of water. They 
are surely drowned ! Oh, Sacred Mary ! Oh, Sacred 
Mary ! " 

" Yet I do not understand, Dominga. What have 
you to do with the children ? They cannot be yours ; 
you are just a girl yourself." 

" Of course, my Senora, those children are mine." 

" I did not dream that you had children I How 
old are they? " 

" Who knows? They are but tiny ; one commences 
to walk a little, the other is small, very small." 

" And you leave them alone in a hut all day ? 
Who cares for them while you are away ? " 

" Certainly no one, my Senora. Who is there? 
Of course there is not anyone." 

" Are they not hungry, cold? " 

" But yes, what does that mean to say? " 

In my simplicity, for I had not been long in Bo- 
gota, I asked, "Where is their father, Dominga?" 

" Who knows ? I have not seen him since the most 
little one was born. He does not come more." 

The woman was sent home through the descending 
floods and instructed to bring the children when she 
came again. The next morning she appeared, carry- 



DOMINGA 15 

ing them both. Juanito, the elder, with his sallow 
pinched face and great appealing eyes, wore one dirty 
garment which stopped far short of the knees. 
Carlito, starved, dull little scrap of humanity, was 
partially wrapped in the filthy rag of a shawl. And 
we were shivering in our woolens! 

The children crawled about the kitchen court while 
the little mother, content beaming from her face, 
went briskly about her work. 

One morning, some months later, Pabla, the 
dining-room girl, announced, " My Senora, in that 
court below, there is Dominga. It is very sick that 
she is, and who knows what that is that she has?" 

" I will go to see, Pabla." 

I am so capable of diagnosing any illness ! How- 
ever this case did not require an expert to tell what 
was the matter. There on the floor huddled 
Dominga; by her side sprawled the two children 
whom somehow she had managed to drag on her 
back for more than a mile to reach the Colegio. No 
need to lay my hand upon her brow; one glance at 
her sunken eyes and burning cheeks was enough. 
Who of my readers can recognize the look of star- 
vation in a human face? One soon learns it in 
Bogota. 

" Dominga, when did you eat last? " I asked her. 

" It was the Wednesday, Senora Mauda, here in 
the house of you. Now there is no work, all those 
families go to the country in this month. Nowhere 
have I work only here with you, now only one day 
of the week. In this week I pay my rent with those 
fifteen cents you paid me ; since the Wednesday I do 
not eat." 

This was Sunday; and Carlito depending upon 
her. 



16 THE LEAST OF THESE 

We managed to secure her a place in the country 
for a few months where the children could have fresh 
air and freedom for play, if not suitable food. 

Dominga is one of the sixty out of every one 
hundred in Colombia for whom there is no marriage. 
No man in this class takes the slightest responsibility 
for the upbringing of a child ; that is for the mother 
. alone. There is no home life. What does this mean 
for the little mother who starves herself, works her- 
self to death, for the children she loves as you and 
I love ours; what does it mean to the child, not to 
know a father's care or discipline ; what does it mean 
to the father, never to have around him the restrain- 
ing influence of the child and his mother, never to 
be called upon to give an unselfish thought to the 
welfare of a dependent being? 

No marriage among the sixty per cent; why? It 
is not the province of this little narrative to explain 
the why and wherefore of things. For one who de- 
mands reasons for the conditions existing in Latin 
America there are not lacking learned treatises, 
easy of consultation, which devote to the subject a 
discussion worthy of it. Here we deal with results, 
not with causes. 



II 

ROSARIO 

WITH but three months of Spanish to our 
credit we had taken charge of the Boys' 
School. Along with the school there had 
descended to us as cook, Rosario, and her six-year-old 
daughter. Squat and grossly stout was Rosario, less 
coppery in color than some mestizos, betraying the 
Indian blood principally by her tiny half-shut eyes. 

Spanish as I knew it in those first months was 
culled from grammars, and Spanish as Rosario 
spoke it was to be found in no dictionary or grammar 
under the sun ; hence some of our conversations were 
ludicrous to an extreme. One of my duties each 
evening was to furnish her a list of the things and in- 
dicate the quantity of each that I thought would be 
needed for the next day's meals. Since I knew noth- 
ing of Spanish cooking, less of the preferences of 
our boarding boys, and still less of the prices of 
things in the plaza, this duty caused me much 
worry. Why not let the woman make her own list? 
Very few Colombian cooks, and only those long 
trained to it, are able to make their market lists. 
Rosario decidedly was not. 

She could not read or write a word, yet in some 
respects her ability surpassed yours or mine. Each 
evening having worked out the market list with the 
assistance of the dictionary and of one of the board- 
ing boys, I read to her the numerous vegetables and 

17 



18 THE LEAST OF THESE 

groceries that I had decided upon for the early morn- 
ing marketing. The next day I produced the list and 
checked up her purchases. Not one time in ten did 
she forget a single item; not one time in twenty did 
she neglect, when reporting its cost, to add a centavo 
or two to each purchase. Her brain was nimble, 
too, in the addition of the sums of money paid out. 
The ten or twelve cents thus gained daily by pre- 
tending a higher cost than she had paid gave her 
a neat little sum for her daily chicha (beer). 

Another source of revenue had she. As she left 
for the market before daylight she was entrusted 
with a key to the front (and only) door of the 
Colegio. Twice each day, an hour before the eleven- 
o'clock breakfast and again before the six-o'clock 
dinner, I counted out a medium-sized potato for each 
member of the household and an equal number of 
small potatoes to go into the soup. Rosario had a 
custom of subtly preparing the largest of the small 
potatoes for the table, thus robbing the soup of its 
due proportion of starch, while she hid the largest 
of the large potatoes. From time to time she stole 
out under the cover of darkness carrying beneath 
her shawl a little basket filled with good-sized pota- 
toes, perhaps a slab or two of chocolate or a few 
breads upon which she had managed to get her 
hands. These things she sold at the corner tienda. 

Two dollars a month was all that I paid the 
woman; yet Colombian senoras complain that the 
foreign mistresses spoil all service by overpaying 
their servants. Who would not wink at pilfering 
when wages so grind the faces of the poor? 

A stove in Colombia is merely a brick table built 
solid to the floor on one side of a dark little kitchen. 
This table is three feet high and three feet wide. At 




Sugar-cane. 




Carrying wood to the city below. The center figure has two mule-loads. 



ROSARIO 19 

intervals holes in the table-top occur and extend 
about half way to the floor where they open to the 
front. These are the drafts. Across the top of the 
openings bricks are set on edge to form grates. On 
these, pieces of charcoal or fagots of wood are laid 
and puffed into blaze by use of the bellows. Kettles 
are balanced on the charcoal and the kitchen equip- 
ment is complete. It is a simple matter for one piece 
of charcoal to burn more rapidly than the others 
and to crumble away, which causes the kettles to 
topple and their contents to spill over the fire, rais- 
ing a cloud of cinders and ashes which descends into 
the cooking food, thus spoiling the portion that re- 
mains in the kettle. There is no oven, no chimney. 
Close beneath the ceiling above the " fireplace," as 
this table is called, is an opening in the wall, two feet 
wide and extending the whole length of the wall. 
Through this, part of the smoke escapes, the most of 
it remaining in the room to blacken the walls a nd to 
stifle the cook. The kitchen has no window and but 
one small door opposite the fireplace ; more openings 
would interfere with the draft. 

In this dark room little Noma, Rosario's daughter, 
crouched most of the time. She was not apportioned 
rations as were the rest of the household, Rosario 
continually assuring me that it was unnecessary. 
Noma lived off scraps, and was clothed from scraps 
begged from " my Seiiora." To judge from appear- 
ance neither she nor her clothing was ever washed. 
Rosario herself showed so intimate an acquaintance 
with dirt and grease that my standing quarrel with 
her was on the subject of cleanliness. 

Her love of drink proved the woman's pitfall. She 
tippled all the time, drank heavily on many occa- 



20 THE LEAST OF THESE 

sions and was drunk frequently. In my periodic 
digging out of the kitchen often would I unearth, 
along with the perfectly good kettles consigned to 
oblivion because " they are so dirty they serve no 
more," villainous looking bottles that would threaten 
the peace of any household. 

Rosario had two hours off each Sabbath afternoon 
with the invariable result that if we had any dinner 
(and boarding boys must always be fed), I had to 
assist the poor stumbling drunken creature to pre- 
pare it. In desperation I took away her two hours 
off; if she could not come home in better condition 
she should stay shut into the servants' room, a 
dark, empty cubby-hole, all the long sunny after- 
noon. One Sunday she stayed. At dinner she sur- 
prised me by serving to me alone a special little 
dainty. While the coals of fire thus heaped on my 
head were burning nicely she came whimpering to 
be allowed " one only little hour in the street in 
which to walk but the tiniest little." 

Of course she had her little hour. Two hours, 
three hours, passed and no Rosario. I heard Noma 
crying, alone and frightened in the servants' room, 
so brought her upstairs. I was anticipating the 
worst from Rosario, when it burst upon us; such a 
pounding at the street-door that only oak planks 
could have resisted its violence. The Missionary 
hurried down to open the door, Noma and I rushed 
out into the corridor and hung over the balustrade. 

" Go back into the library and shut the door," 
peremptorily ordered the Missionary. " Take Noma 
with you and keep her there." 

Startled I obeyed. Then ensued a heavy dragging 
noise which was unmistakable. Down the length of 
the lower corridor it echoed until it came to a stop 



ROSARIO 21 

in the servants' room. A restless half hour later 
the Missionary joined us in the library. 

" Disgusting business," he ejaculated. " The 
woman is drunk, as dead as a log. A policeman 
found her in the gutter six blocks from here and, 
recognizing her, hauled her all the way home by 
her feet. The skin is worn completely off one side 
of her face where he dragged her over the cobble- 
stones. Think of it; that ponderous body dragged 
by her feet ! It is a wonder it did not kill her. If 
she recovers she will be a hideous sight forever. 
Don't let Noma go downstairs tonight ; let her sleep 
here in the library." 

Privately, as I waited upon the forlorn creature, 
I resolved that Rosario should seek a new situation 
as soon as she was able to leave the house; but a 
week with no cook at all, or a different one from the 
street for each meal, weakened my resolution. I 
decided to renew my patience with Rosario. Per- 
haps I could yet help her to reform. I realized, too, 
that the Missionary Lady in the Girls' School across 
the city spoke the truth when she said, " After all, 
Rosario is virtuous and you might be much worse 
off if you let her go." Rosario virtuous ! Of a truth, 
how our charity increases when we change con- 
tinents ! 

The poor woman became forever grateful to us 
for our forbearance. She never thanked us in 
words, but her devotion was a thing at which to 
marvel. 

One day she came to ask me how I wished the 
potatoes prepared for breakfast, made into balls and 
fried in deep fat or served in Saratoga chips as 
usual. Feeling that I could not absorb any more 
lard if I starved instead, I replied that it did not 



m THE LEAST OF THESE 

matter ; the boys liked them either way and I should 
not eat any myself. 

At breakfast, with much ceremony and an air of 
great mystery, Pabla brought in and set before me 
a plate containing a brownish, stickyish-looking 
mixture which I could not cut with my knife. Grin- 
ning broadly she insisted upon my tasting the con- 
coction. 

"But what is it, Pabla?" 

" A thing very good. A thing for my Senora if 
she has not so great an appetite. But prove it." 

The Missionary and the boarding boys watched to 
see what I might do. It would have taken a braver 
person than I am to have tasted so nauseous a dish 
without knowing what it was. 

" Pabla, unless you tell me what this is, I shall 
not taste it." 

" It is that Rosario has much sympathy for the 
Senora for that she is not able to eat her rice and 
those potatoes. Rosario herself was it who went to 
the street for the purpose of buying the blood of a 
goat which is now fried for my Senora. It is most 
strengthening, most delicious, ah, but how much so ! " 

The boys laughed and the Missionary looked 
amused but the servants were disappointed, not to 
say disgusted, because I sent the dainty, untasted, 
back to the kitchen. 

I had taken from Rosario the privilege of going 
out Sunday afternoons and it was several weeks 
after her escapade before she asked for any hours 
off. Then she fawningly begged permission to go 
after breakfast to make some necessary purchases 
for herself and Noma. 

"The Doctor" (the Missionary) "told me that 
he goes to put Noma into those classes that she 



ROSARIO 23 

learns to read. Then I buy her sandals that she 
looks respectable, if my Senora does me the favor 
so great to let me go for a little hour." 

" And after the little hour, Rosario? " 

" Then I return, to be sure. I prepare that din- 
ner, as always. My sister it is that accompanies me 
and she does not take" (drink). "She it is that 
helps me hurry myself." 

Concealing my smile at the mental vision of 
waddling old Rosario hurrying herself, I gave her 
the money she asked for and told her that she might 
go for an hour. Two hours later I went down- 
stairs to unlock and set out the afternoon lunch 
for the boys, planning on going directly to the 
kitchen to commence the preparation of the dinner, 
since I had no expectation of seeing Rosario again 
that afternoon. As I entered the dining-room there 
in the corridor stood the cook, her mutilated face 
distorted by a smile. 

" Why, Rosario, have you not gone yet? " I asked 
in surprise. 

" Of course, my Senora, I have been, I have 
returned. Allow me one little favor more," and she 
shuffled off to the kitchen. 

I went on upstairs wondering what the woman could 
possibly want now. A few moments later she lum- 
bered up the narrow stairs and pushed through the 
doorway, bearing a large tray laden with eight 
choice varieties of bananas. With much gracious- 
ness and with horrible twistings of her features she 
presented me the fruit as a token of gratitude for 
her hour off. My reward was so out of proportion 
to my deserts that I was speechless. 

With a show of anxiety, she inquired, " It appears 
to my Senora that I was very late? " 



m THE LEAST OF THESE 

" Oh, no, Rosario, you returned promptly, but 
you should not have taken the trouble to bring me 
all this nice fruit. However, I thank you sincerely." 

" For nothing, my Senora. Those thanks are all 
mine that the Senora, so good, should accept my 
unworthy gift and I implore her to pardon me if I 
was late." 

I dicl not tell her I was so relieved that she had 
returned at all and able to stand that I could have 
forgiven her a great tardiness. 

One morning the Missionary returned from an 
errand in the street and asked me to send for 
Rosario. She came into our presence, looking 
startled but saying nothing. The Missionary held 
in his hand the market list for the day as he said: 

" You bought sixteen dozen eggs this morning ; 
what did you pay for them? " 

" Doctor, the Senora and I, already have we 
arranged all that from the plaza." 

" Yes, but I wish to hear what you paid for those 
eggs." 

" That which I said to Senora Mauda ; two cents 
each egg. ,y 

" I have just come from the plaza and I priced 
eggs. They offered me all there were in the market 
at one and seven; I could have secured them at one 
and six, or even at one and five, a cent and a half 
per egg. That means that they are selling at from 
eighteen to twenty cents a dozen and you are charg- 
ing the Senora twenty-four cents a dozen." 

" And what is it that I know about those dozens? 
I know nothing of dozens ; I paid two cents for each 
of those eggs. It is a good class of egg that I buy, 
not those eggs carried for many days from far away. 
I buy the good eggs." 



ROSARIO 25 

w And at most you do not pay over one and 
seven — a cent and seven-tenths per egg. Hand over 
to the Sefiora the money you have kept back." 

But this she would not do. She departed, 
grumbling that she had paid two cents — well, that 
was what she had paid, anyway. 

" She probably did not pay over a cent and a 
half for the eggs," the Missionary remarked. " They 
charge me more than they would think of asking 
her because they^ know that I am a foreigner and 
will not haggle with them as she does. She has made 
sixty or eighty cents out of you today on the eggs 
alone. Of course it must be put up with while neither 
of us is able to go to the market with her and keep 
watch of her buying." 

That very morning at breakfast the boiled egg 
served the Missionary " came out bad," and he 
arose from the table and went to his office without 
having tasted a mouthful of breakfast. I wondered 
what were Rosario's feelings when Pabla reported 
the occurrence to her. 

Valentine, like Rosario, was a left-over from our 
predecessors when we came into possession at the 
Colegio. He was a lank loose-limbed boy of sixteen, 
who looked as though he had never in his life had 
a full satisfying meal. Barefooted, he was clad in 
tattered, beltless trousers which extended three 
inches below the knees, and which were surmounted 
by a calico garment that, before ever it had 
descended to him, had done its full duty as a 
woman's blouse. Both garments had been patched 
and the patches patched (Valentine had a mother!) 
until most of the colors and materials known to man 
could be made out on that one gawky figure. 

The heavy dullness of Valentine's face was partly 



26 THE LEAST OF THESE 

relieved by the steady look from his quiet eyes, which 
held the expression of a faithful dog. Faithful was 
the word for Valentine — faithful and reliable. I 
often wondered, although I never paused in my busy 
round to count, how many times each day he 
stumbled up the steep crooked back stairs, tugging 
pails of water with which to refresh the long rows 
of orchids, carnations and ferns, making fairyland 
of our upper corridor. No one ever reminded him, 
" Valentine, here is a plant that needs water " ; oh, 
you who have lived in South America, take note of 
such devotion to duty! Were there errands to be 
done, — a note to be taken to a parent (the Colegio 
had no telephone), a spool of thread or an extra 
basket of charcoal to be bought, — " Valentine, Valen- 
tine, where is Valentine? " was the cry raised. 

So honest and painstaking was he that we felt 
he deserved a chance in life, so the Missionary 
decreed that the demands upon the boy's time should 
be fewer in number and he should enter the primary 
grade of the school and learn to read and write. 
This was a great and unusual privilege to grant to 
one of his class and he was appreciative of it. We 
secured him clothes which, if they were not much of 
an improvement in fit, at least were more of a same- 
ness in color and texture than the original suit. 

When Valentine left us some years later it was 
to be apprenticed to learn a trade at which a man 
in Colombia may at least keep himself alive. 



Ill 

PABLA 

PABLA, with eyes and hair of the deep, dead 
black of midnight, with swarthy skin, came 
nearer being Indian than any other servant 
I ever had. Broad-chested, thick-necked, with a 
round little head carrying one of the pleasantest of 
faces, the woman wearied me with her eternal good- 
nature. Her spirits were like a geyser, forever 
bubbling up and overflowing at any and at all times. 
No one has the right to go through life with nothing 
and be so utterly carefree. Of course she drank 
and that deeply, but she was never drunk ; the more 
she imbibed, the wider she stretched her extensive 
mouth in grins as she incessantly rattled off what 
were intended as pleasantries. She was even farther 
than Rosario from being neat ; the untidiness of the 
house served as a thorn in my flesh until I decided 
that I had perfected myself in the grace of patience. 
Then I dismissed Pabla. 

A wearisome month dragged by. Most of the 
time there was no dining-room girl, part of the time 
there were three or four in one day. A large share 
of the napkins and tableware disappeared with the 
various applicants. Regularly each Sabbath after- 
noon Pabla appeared, as bright and fresh as a peony, 
red ribbons gayly bobbing, as she extended La Senora 
a peace-offering in the shape of a great tray of bril- 
liant-hued flowers. 

27 



28 THE LEAST OF THESE 

" You'd better give her another trial," remarked 
the Missionary on the fourth Sunday. " It cannot 
be worse than it is now." 

Triumphant was her re-entrance. She was so 
happy that if the dining-room was mussy or the 
parlor undusted I pretended to be oblivious of it. 
In her way she worked hard with apparently no 
thought beyond that of spending herself for us ; her 
devotion and willingness covered a multitude of her 
sins of inefficiency. 

The routine of our days is of this sort: after the 
six-o'clock morning coffee I go downstairs, unlock 
the cupboard and lay out bread and chocolate for 
each boarding boy and each servant, relock the cup- 
board and return to our rooms on the second floor. 
Directly Pabla follows me upstairs. 

" My Sefiora now thinks in sending Valentine for 
that bread?" 

" Not now, Pabla. It is not yet time for that ; 
he cannot go for an hour and he is in class. You 
must not disturb him." 

" Then what hour may it be, Senora Mauda ? " 

Being informed, she departs. Not one in three of 
the servant class can tell time from a clock. 

I sit down to study Spanish and ten minutes pass 
while I wonder what the boys are shouting over and 
if the teachers are as late this morning as usual. 
All classes open at seven and in a country where 
sunrise is at six practically every day in the year 
it is not easy for anyone to be on time at so early 
an hour. Here is Pabla ! 

" Is it possible that Senora Mauda does us the 
favor of descending to the kitchen? Rosario comes 
from the market." 

I go to the kitchen at once, and carefully inspect 



PABLA 29 

the cook's purchases; thirty little handfuls of all 
sorts of stuff known and unknown to me; rows of 
tiny bundles wrapped in leaves, neatly folded away 
from sight if not from smell; eggs, tied four in a 
row, each in its little cell of dried corn leaf; lard, 
done up like sausages and bought by the string; 
leaves, seeds, bark, roots, — what does not serve as 
food in the deft hands of a Colombian cook? 

The woman fingers over each purchase and men- 
tions the price that she paid; I add mentally and 
make the total result in the two and one-half or 
three dollars that she was given to spend. I look 
at her sharply in an effort to read how much money 
she has in the depths of her large pocket, for both 
of us understand that she derives a steady income 
from the marketing. Her twinkling little eyes hold 
a look of cunning but her face is as innocent as a 
fresh May morning. 

As I unlock the coal-bin and watch her measure 
out the charcoal, I remark that she may send Pabla 
upstairs at once for the supplies she needs from the 
store-room. Keys in hand I await the woman ten 
minutes. Why attempt to study when I expect her 
any moment? 

Here she comes at last, carrying two bowls, a 
platter and a basket. The padlock of the store-room 
door refuses to yield to the key. I struggle, Pabla 
struggles, and finally she goes down to the Mis- 
sionary's office to bring him to apply his brain and 
brawn to the task. The door opened, he renews his 
promise to secure a new padlock and returns to his 
waiting class. I get down on my knees to count out 
the potatoes, climb into a chair to reach the rice 
which I measure by handfuls, give out a chunk of 
black rock salt, a cup of green coffee berries, a few 



30 THE LEAST OF THESE 

ears of corn for grinding, a handful of wheat for 
thickening soup, 

" Is that absolutely all that is needed? " I ask 
as I tuck away what I had laid aside from Rosario's 
purchases to be brought up to the store-room. 

" Of course, without doubt it is, my Senora." 

I return to my desk, find my place, commence a 
translation. Here is Pabla again ! 

" It is that Rosario forgets that macaroni which 
she needs." 

I drop my work, go for my keys, tackle the pad- 
lock. After several vexatious attempts it yields and 
I take out the macaroni. Again I seat myself at 
work, listening continually for Pabla's heavy step 
on the stair, for she is certain to have forgotten 
something else. It is sugar. I hunt up the hammer, 
the butcher-knife, some clean paper to spread over 
the table, and lift the twenty-four pound cake of 
dark sugar on to the table. Laboriously, with the 
knife and the hammer to drive it, I hack off a few 
pieces which Pabla bobs around to pick up as they 
fly about the room. We gather up the crumbs and 
she departs while I restore the cake of sugar to the 
shelf and lock it up. 

A few minutes later it is more salt, or an egg, 
" one egg came out bad." Were I to deal out these 
supplies before they are needed they would be wasted 
or sold in the street. In order to keep the income 
of the school on speaking acquaintance with the 
outgo it is necessary to watch every expenditure 
most carefully. Here is Pabla at my elbow. 

" And now, my Senora, has the hour come for send- 
ing Valentine for that bread? " 

" Yes, Pabla. Call him." 

He comes, gravely receives his instructions and the 



PABLA 31 

money, takes his basket and departs. Within fifteen 
minutes he is back, and I count the buns ; one hun- 
dred fifty, two hundred, two hundred ten, — no real 
loaves are baked unless specially ordered. Valentine 
is the only one whom I can trust to bring me change 
and he cannot do it unless I impress it upon him 
again and again just what sum he is to bring. His 
coins — half-cents, cents, two-and-a-half cents — are 
counted and found to be correct. 

He takes two pitchers and goes for the milk, 
returns; the milk is brought to me for inspec- 
tion. 

" Valentine, there appears to be a little less milk 
than usual. Why?" 

" My Senora, it is possible that a few drops of 
that milk fell in the street," said with quiet indif- 
ference. 

" Oh, Valentine, you must not spill milk that 
costs as much as this does ! I fear that I shall have 
to send you for another pint as here is not enough 
for the boys' coffee." 

Back he goes ; ten minutes later I gravely inspect 
the pint, and he returns to the class-room. A half 
hour races by, and here is Pabla, lumbering up the 
steep stairs again. 

" My Senora, Rosario sends me to say to you that 
that milk fell down in boiling. One little minute was 
it that Rosario comes into the dining-room to say 
to me a thing that she heard in the plaza and that 
milk fell over in cooking. She runs, I run ; but now 
there is a lack of milk. She tells me to say to you 
that if you will do the favor so great of sending 
Valentine for more milk you may put that charge 
against her account." 

" I will pay for the extra milk, but I do wish that 



32 THE LEAST OF THESE 

Rosario would not let it boil over or tip over every 
morning. Please send me Valentine." 

Ten minutes later Pabla appears to ask if it is 
time for Rosario to put the vegetables on the fire; 
fifteen minutes later to remark, gazing nonchalantly 
at the ceiling: 

" My Senora forgets to come to take out that 
fruit for the breakfast." 

" Oh, no, Pabla, I forget nothing. It is not yet 
time to do that." 

At half past ten I descend to the dining-room, 
unlock the cupboard and count out pieces of fruit 
to lay beside each plate, inspect the table, remind 
Pabla of the napkins and straighten them out for 
her as she cannot read the names on the rings, hunt 
up the missing chairs, help Rosario to dish up the 
soup evenly, peep into the coffee-pot and the milk- 
pots to see that all flies have been rescued from a 
boiling death, and ring the breakfast bell. 

The boys march in and stand behind their chairs 
while grace is said. As usual the Missionary is 
detained in his office by callers and I send his food 
back to the kitchen. Mentally, sometimes physically, 
also, I help Pabla serve the meal. The food for 
the servants is apportioned and sent to the kitchen, 
that for the beggars dished up and despatched to 
the pitiful line squatting in the zaguan (vestibule). 
Breakfast is over! 

At two the chocolate and bread is counted out for 
the afternoon lunch. As we never know in advance 
whether two or thirty of the day-pupils are going 
to take this lunch with us, we frequently find our- 
selves short of bread and Valentine is again 
despatched to the bakery. At four we commence 
again to try to get to Rosario the supplies she needs 



PABLA 33 

for the preparation of the six-o'clock dinner. As 
sure as I have callers in the afternoon, so certain is 
Pabla to appear to beg more charcoal; Rosario 
underestimated her need. At eight a bread and a 
sweet are set out for everybody in the house and I 
sigh with relief as I realize that all for whom I am 
responsible have been granted their daily bread for 
one day more. 

Why are not these supplies given out once for all 
each day? I tried that. I impressed upon both 
women, again and again, that they would not receive 
another thing in the whole day and that they must 
divide everything into two parts, using only one- 
half for the morning meal. 

In the afternoon when I went to the kitchen court 
to inspect the washing lying around on the ground 
" to soak," I found a heaping pan of cooked potatoes 
thrown out to the doves. With potatoes at two and 
one-half dollars per bushel! Six times did Pabla 
come upstairs to ask me for supplies for the dinner ; 
she followed me around when I had callers and 
begged for food which I persisted in denying her. 
Fat old Rosario labored up the stairs and Valentine 
was sent to me twice. Finally all three of them 
interviewed the Missionary in his office ; he told them 
that the housekeeping was my affair and he would 
not mix in it, but if I had warned them that the 
supplies were for the entire day they should have 
set aside enough for the dinner. Later he remarked 
to me that perhaps I had better give out rations for 
the dinner again. I might have done so had I not 
seen that peck of potatoes thrown away; as it 
was, I did not do it. 

We had almost nothing for dinner, no vegetables, 
no rice. I sent to the corner tienda as we sat at 



34 THE LEAST OF THESE 

table and bought stale soiled breads with which to 
appease our hunger. It is not customary to serve 
bread at dinner. The boys ate their meagre meal 
quietly, while my cheeks burned as I wondered what 
they thought of my management. The Missionary 
was grave, the servants, all on the point of leaving 
and I, worried. The next day I went back to count- 
ing beans and potatoes and was glad to do it. 

Saturdays Pabla tears up our rooms and gen- 
erally plays havoc with our things, tackling every- 
thing with the force and vim of a whirlwind. She 
commences by throwing the rugs and cushions over 
the balustrade into the court below where the boys 
stumble and crawl over them on the way to the 
dining-room for morning coffee. Instead of then 
sweeping the rooms thus bereft of their small rugs, 
she seizes fiercely upon a pail of water and slops it 
along the floor around the edge of the large center 
rug. Down she gets upon her knees to chase after 
the stream in an effort to sop it up before it shall 
run into the rug, which, of course, she does not suc- 
ceed in doing. For half the forenoon, without having 
swept anywhere, she paddles around in that water, 
which performance she calls scrubbing. Result: a 
streak of mud around each large rug. 

Then she rushes up with her broom and com- 
mences an onslaught upon the large rugs, scraping 
away at them until it is a wonder they are not in 
rags. The brooms are rough sticks, two and a half 
feet long, around one end of which stiff reeds are 
tied in a bundle no larger than a man's fist. Such 
a broom is about as easy to sweep with as a corn- 
stalk would be and not much more effective. 

After Pabla has pounded and slapped the rugs 
an hour each and the dust is so thick that one can 



PABLA 35 

scarcely see across the room, she joyfully pro- 
nounces her work finished and goes away. The 
floors, since nothing ever dries in Bogota, are still 
too wet to spread down the small rugs, which the 
woman ran out in a flood of rain to rescue after 
they were well dampened and which she afterward 
shook in the closed corridor in front of the sup- 
posedly clean rooms. Later she returns to place 
these rugs as straight as geometrical lines, while she 
leaves the large rugs billowing like the waves of the 
ocean, and at all sorts of angles with their sur- 
roundings. Nothing is dusted and the cushions are 
tucked into unexpected corners so that I must hunt 
for them to find them. 

Pabla is the personification of willingness. When 
the Missionary is sick she cheerfully trots up and 
down stairs forty times a day and seems honored in 
the doing of it. Yet without extra service she has 
work enough for any woman. When the Missionary 
cannot come downstairs and T am battling in the 
office with his problems, she goes about the house 
shaking her black head and mumbling, " Sacred 
God, but he makes much lack in the house." When 
I remark that perhaps he will soon be better and 
able to return to the office, she tries to look 
lugubrious and exclaims, " Blessed Mary, but it 
would be his harm." If I attempt to have him sit 
up a little she declares, to the accompaniment of her 
choicest swear-words, " But it is a crime to think in 
such a thing." 

One afternoon when Valentine went with his little 
basket to buy sweets for the boys I followed him to 
learn where and how he did it. As we left the house 
we noticed Pabla standing in the lower corridor 
grinning at us. We bought the sweets the third 



36 THE LEAST OF THESE 

door from the Colegio so were gone but a few mo- 
ments and as we returned I caught a glimpse of 
Pabla's squat figure scudding around the corner. 
I went on upstairs and stood in the upper corridor 
which commanded a view of the door. A moment 
later Pabla entered breathlessly, on a trot, with an 
upward glance towards my rooms. When she saw 
me watching her, she dropped her head sheep- 
ishly and ran through the long corridor to the 
kitchen. 

An hour later she came for the dinner supplies 
and when I looked at her searchingly she grew red 
and mumbled something about Rosario's needing 
extra milk and sending her after it. 

" But, Pabla, you know that you are forbidden 
to go to the street, and when Rosario wishes milk 
she asks me for it." 

Poor Pabla, with a breath like a whiff from a 
grog-ship ! These women have had their chicha since 
they were in their cradles ; of what use to attempt 
to deny them drink now? 

I bought a tiny potted rose-bush, said to be of a 
rare variety, and for four months I carefully tended 
and watched it, carrying it to the sun, moving it out 
of the rain, setting it away from the wind, watering 
it myself for fear that Valentine would keep it too 
wet or too dry. At last a wonderful yellow rose, as 
large as an orange, burst into bloom, sitting proudly 
on the very center of the symmetrical little plant. 
It was perfect in its beauty, the marvel of all. The 
second day of its glory Pabla appeared before me 
grinning broadly and holding out my one lovely rose 
— plucked ! 

" A little present for my Senora," she said with 
the air of giving great pleasure. How is it possible 



PABLA 37 

that even she, as dull as she is, could not see that 
I did not wish my one precious rose picked? 

There were in our school " Big Murillo " and 
" Little Murillo." The former was a stalwart, un- 
couth fellow of eighteen years, who had come to us 
from a distant village; the latter, a well-formed, 
handsome youth of twenty, was very like his father, 
a polished gentleman who had never married, and so 
was desirous of doing something for his talented son. 
Naturally Big Murillo, with his loud guffaw and 
coarse manners, acted upon Little Murillo as an ir- 
ritant, since every instinct of the latter was that of 
a gentleman. On his part, Big Murillo hated the 
other because of the scorn with which the smaller man 
regarded him, and this dislike manifested itself by in- 
sinuating remarks, by asking Little Murillo when he 
had last seen his mother and if he were going to spend 
his vacation with her. Since everyone knew that 
Little Murillo did not know who his mother was, such 
remarks were the veriest insults. 

One evening the two young men returned from the 
mid-week service and, with the rest of the boarding 
boys, entered the dining-room, seating themselves at 
the table for the evening lunch. As the Missionary 
had company we had asked that our lunch be sent up- 
stairs. Suddenly we heard the crash of falling 
dishes, the rattle of chairs, voices pitched high in ex- 
citement. The light in the dining-room flashed out, 
and a scuffling and screaming ensued. The Mission- 
ary started from his chair exclaiming, " Those Muril- 
los again," and bounded down the stairs followed by 
the two visiting gentlemen. 

Big Murillo in passing the other's chair at table 
had rudely brushed against him and Little Murillo 
had responded with some insulting remark. The 



38 THE LEAST OF THESE 

larger man thereupon struck the smaller, who in- 
stantly drew his pocket knife and attacked his enemy. 
Big Murillo seized a chair and attempted to break his 
opponent's head. Pabla extinguished the light and 
the young men wrestled and fought in the darkness 
until they reached the corridor where the brilliant 
moonlight enabled them to see each other. Then 
Pabla rushed in between them, but was knocked down 
and trampled on. She received a severe cut on one 
hand from the jabbing knife with which the smaller 
man fought. The Missionary threw himself between 
the combatants and held them apart while he tried 
to calm them enough to induce them to desist. Sud- 
denly Big Murillo, standing behind the Missionary, 
stealthily attempted to pounce upon his enemy, but 
one of the visitors, noting the movement, threw him- 
self upon the big fellow and bore him to the floor. 

I descended to the dining-room to find Pabla, her 
smile gone for once, making an effort to straighten 
things. As she gathered up pieces of china, her 
hand dripping blood, she cried over the broken dishes 
and demolished chairs. 

One evening, as Pabla was passing an empty 
schoolroom, she was startled by a slight noise. 
Entering the unlighted room, she distinguished the 
form of a man climbing into a window which someone 
had forgotten to fasten. Doubtless his purpose was 
to secret himself somewhere and be locked in when 
the house was closed for the night. Brave Pabla ad- 
vanced upon the man and ordered him to retreat, 
which he did at once. The Missionary heard her 
voice in the dark schoolroom and, coming to investi- 
gate, arrived in time to see the robber disappearing 
into- the moonlit street, When Pabla was asked if 
she were not frightened, she replied : 



PABLA 39 

" Of course, Senor, but what does that mean to say ? 
Surely it is my duty to protect the Doctor's house ! " 

Pabla's unselfish devotion included not only the 
Missionary and myself, but also the boarding boys. 
They imposed upon her, constantly demanding 
extra service and unscrupulously ordering her about. 
More work fell to her lot than one woman could 
expect to do and keep well; she fell ill, we sent her 
to her sister, and Cleofa came in her place. 



IV 

CLEOFA 

AT first glance Cleofa appeared likable. She 
Z\ had a round vacant face, much lighter in 
•+» -^ color than Pabla's; in fact she was quite a 
red and olive blond, as blonds go in Latin America. 
The Missionary pronounced her better looking than 
her predecessor, a compliment which did not mean 
much as he had declared Pabla to be the homeliest 
woman he had ever seen. 

The new girl's display of temper was like a 
tropical storm; nothing was ever more certain to 
occur, or was more violent while it lasted, and it 
burst upon us from a clear sky with no rumblings 
of thunder. She was forever in trouble with some 
of the boys and often even with Rosario, who was 
more tranquil than an Indian summer. 

The laundry became a night-mare to me while 
Cleofa was with us. At least half the clothes each 
week had to be sent back to be re-ironed and nothing 
was ever well done at last. 

To iron without smudging the clean articles is an 
art. The utensil used is a tailor's goose, a heavy 
hollow iron holding burning charcoal in its center. 
It is not a simple matter to keep the charcoal ablaze 
and it requires periods of blowing with a bellows, 
which causes cinders and sparks to fly in all direc- 
tions. Not infrequently the clothes are burned in 

40 




Milk-vendors. 




Rural homes. 







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Four hundred years of Spanish civilization and yet 



CLEOFA 41 

spots by the sparks and rarely do they escape being 
blackened in places by the cinders. 

For six days of the week water runs in a slow 
drizzle from a faucet in the kitchen court of the 
Colegio. On Tuesdays there is no water; as every- 
one gives a different explanation for this and as no 
two reasons agree, I have never really known why we 
have no water on that day. Monday the dining- 
room girl, between the intervals of running up and 
downstairs, serving two meals, preparing and serv- 
ing three lunches, and keeping the dining-room as 
well as our living-rooms clean, dampens all the 
clothes, wads them up with soap, and strews them 
around the kitchen court. Tuesday, if she finds time 
and I remind her of it, she carries water from the 
front court and pours it over them. Wednesday she 
commences to pound each article against a flat in- 
clined stone as large as a table, constantly pouring 
water over the garment as she moves it up and down. 
Swish, slap, swash, whack, slap, the noise reverber- 
ates through the Colegio and escapes into the street. 
As one walks through Bogota, he can hear it issuing 
from all the houses in the city. The parexcellence 
of a washwoman consists in the force of the abrupt 
sharp thwacks she can produce on the stone with 
somebody's fine linen and laces. Handfuls of broken 
buttons are gathered up after each washing. 

When an article comes through this ordeal clean, 
it is spread on the bushes in the solar to dry. If 
still not clean, it is returned to soak, usually on a 
board that it may be moved easily from place to 
place and left wherever the sun's rays penetrate into 
the court. The board has rusty nails, the clothes 
are covered with rust spots, but it occurs to no one 
to remove the nails. Practically every bush in 



42 THE LEAST OF THESE 

Colombia contains dye-stuff in its leaves or blossoms ; 
clothes hung on bushes are dyed in streaks, yet the 
women object to using a clothes-line, because the 
sun cannot reach all parts of a garment hung on a 
line. 

When all the clothes are washed and dried they 
are collected to be blued and starched. The starch 
is made at night and left to stand until morning 
when it has become as thick and almost as unman- 
ageable as glue. From one to three hours are spent 
in beating it up with the hands and the fore-arms; 
slap, slap, slap, slap, until I wonder at the endurance 
of the women. The right consistency at last, the 
mass is blued a deep indigo. Starched dry in that 
thick paste, everything — table-linen, bed-linen, hand- 
kerchiefs — comes out as stiff as a board and as blue 
as I feel when I see it. Fortunate indeed is the 
Senora who receives her clothes, ironed and creased 
in wonderful folds, two weeks after she has sent them 
downstairs. 

For three successive weeks Cleofa spoiled the white 
clothes by leaving them in soak for a day or two 
with her red dress on top of them. The first time 
it happened I upbraided her, and she responded with 
a long tirade containing a startling flow of swear- 
words. The second time it occurred I spent a half 
day balancing a pail on charcoal, trying to boil out 
the color which persisted in thwarting my purpose. 
I told her if it happened again that I should expect 
her to pay for the ruined things (fancy it, from two 
dollars per month!). Even that threat did not pre- 
vent a re-occurrence of the disaster. She was a 
little frightened when for the third time I found that 
calico dress on top of everything else, and she went 
to the street to purchase an acid with which for 



CLEOFA '43 

nearly a week she worked over the mottled clothes 
but without success. About everything in the house 
was eventually stained from that one red dress. 

The girl was both foolish and obstinate. She 
insisted that she did " all thing the very best," and 
would receive instruction in nothing. For example 
she sprinkled a week's laundry, theh found not a 
moment in which to iron it. I discovered the things 
on one of my frequent tours of inspection (the habit 
of close inspection, my women declared, no Colombian 
senora ever had and they considered such a custom 
very improper in me) and told her to take the things 
out and hang them on the line again. I supposed of 
course she had done it, but she had not. Several 
days later I came upon them completely mildewed; 
nothing escaped, not even the six new long table- 
cloths which I had just made for the Colegio and 
which had never before been washed. 

When Cleofa had been with us three months, Small 
Son made his appearance, and the woman assumed 
the extra work and the longer hours without com- 
ment. Up and down stairs, through the long cor- 
ridors, back and forth she went, forever on a trot. 
It troubled me that no one could be found to help 
her but she made no complaint. She did not know 
how to work and she would let no one show her but 
she was as far from being indolent as any girl I ever 
had, and all Colombian servant-women are hard- 
working. 

When Small Son was a week old, Bertilda, a 
young girl who was acting as housekeeper for me, 
came to tell me that she could not stay in the house 
if Cleofa continued so insolent and rebellious. Ber- 
tilda cried, Cleofa stormed and swore, the nurse, 
Bautista, screamed excitedly and pandemonium 



44 THE LEAST OF THESE 

reigned. The Missionary in his office heard the 
clamor and came running through the corridor and 
up the stairs. Into my room he flew and asked, 
" What is it? " Waiting for no answer he came to 
the bed and, putting his head down almost with a 
sob, asked if I was all right. The women sneaked 
away. 

Not until afterward did I know that the physician 
did not expect me to get well, and the Missionary 
had thought me dead when he heard just such a com- 
motion as is raised when a death occurs. 

After things had quieted down somewhat, I sent 
for Cleofa and told her that if she would manage 
with Bertilda and Bautista I would give her double 
wages and a new dress when I got up. Three more 
weeks went by and I was still unable to sit up when 
the woman came to tell me she was leaving. 

" Oh, Cleofa, I know that the work is too hard for 
one woman, with so much running up and down- 
stairs and so much laundry with no chance to. dry 
anything in this steady downpour ; but we are send- 
ing for Dominga and things will be easier. Don't 
go now when we need you so much." 

" It is not that work, my Sefiora. All that I do for 
Senora Mauda, that is but a pleasure. It certainly 
is that my brother is sick and it is I myself that he 
has sent for. In this next week I go." 

When Rosario heard of it she told Cleofa that she 
had no right to leave without giving longer notice, 
and that we could call in a policeman to keep her. 
Cleofa came directly to me and asked if that were 
true ; I told her I did not know, it might be. Then 
she came nearer breaking down than I had before 
seen her, for she usually tossed her head and giggled 
on all occasions. She asked permission to go out 



CLEOFA 45 

for a few moments so I instructed Valentine to 
unlock the door for her. She went away, but she 
did not return; and I was owing her a month's 
wages, — the pay for that month of hard, hard work. 
The injustice of it troubled me as, in spite of the 
incredulity of the rest of the household, I believed 
her story that she was going to her brother in 
another city. 

Two days later she presented herself in my room, 
gay and flippant. She admitted that she had no 
brother, that she had found a place where the work 
was easier, and she had returned for her double wages 
and the new dress. 

Teresa took her place, and for the time being, the 
char-woman, Dominga, was made responsible for 
the laundry. A pleasant-faced, sloppy-figured little 
woman was Teresa, whose eyes, nose and hair pro- 
claimed her what she was, — part negro. She is the 
only servant with negro blood that I have ever had 
in Colombia. A born nurse girl, she was a great 
comfort to me since I could not leave my room until 
Small Son was more than two months old. Her dark 
face fairly shone with delight when at last we were 
able to take the child for his first outing, she carry- 
ing him and I trailing after to watch her every step. 
She remarked, tentatively: 

" The foreign senoras of Bogota have that custom 
of putting shoes on the girl who carries the baby. 
Senora Mauda thinks in that thing? " 

" No, Teresa," I replied. " I am afraid that if 
you wore shoes you might stumble ; they would hurt 
your feet and be so stiff that you could not walk. 
Small Son is safer if you go as you are accustomed 
to go." 



BAUTISTA 

THE nurse that we employed when Small Son 
came was considered the best that we could 
secure in a city where no nurse is trained, as 
we understand the term. She was highly recom- 
mended to us by our physician, a Harvard graduate. 
She had spent nine months in the city of Paris in a 
hospital of her church, and had seen many things 
undreamed of by the nurse-women who had never 
been out of Bogota. She. was a respectable-looking 
woman, dressed in a black skirt, with a mantilla 
draped about her ample form in such a way that 
nothing of her basque showed. Upon her feet she 
wore shoes, a sure sign that she did not belong to 
the servant class. The woman had a kindly, although 
heavy, face and appeared quiet and trustworthy. 

She was with us six weeks, receiving a dollar a 
day, wonderful wages, and to the best of her ability 
she was faithful during that time. The physician 
had said that she would do exactly as she was told, 
a virtue which he had not discovered in any other 
nurse in the city. The third day that she was with 
us he instructed her to give a little medicine to the 
baby. That afternoon she was gone on her walk 
longer than usual; shortly after her return I asked 
her if she had given the medicine. 

" No, Senora. I gave the child another remedy 
which I think is better." 

46 



BAUTISTA 47 

" What will the medico say to that? " 

" Oh, I met him on the street when I was out and 
he said that he had changed his mind and wished me 
to give this other thing. So I bought it at once and 
it is administered." 

It seemed strange to me that the physician should 
change his mind after having given a prescription, 
but I lay puzzling over it without saying anything 
more to her about it. The next morning when the 
doctor came he asked me, " Did Bautista give the 
medicine to the child? " 

I told him no, repeating the explanation that she 
had given me. Never have I seen a man angrier. 
He sent for the nurse who was keeping discreetly out 
of sight and roundly scolded her. She excused her- 
self by saying that Doctor So-and-so always gave 
the other medicine and she had helped him in eleven 
cases so she had come to believe it the better. 
Naturally quoting a rival doctor did not serve to 
calm down our physician; he told her that this was 
his case, not hers, adding that our lives were not 
safe in the hands of a woman who changed the medi- 
cines at her own discretion. Thereupon he dismissed 
her. But I could not let her go at such a crisis, so 
the Missionary was sent for to pour oil upon the 
troubled waters. The doctor stormed off to his next 
call, Bautista sobbed and sniffled all day and through 
the next night, the Missionary watched the woman 
distrustfully, and the atmosphere of our home was 
anything but cheerful. 

The next morning the doctor laughed it off and 
said that perhaps she had learned a lesson, yet never 
again could he recommend her to any senora. He 
added : 

" She thinks because she was in Paris a few months 



48 THE LEAST OF THESE 

that she knows more than anyone else; she knows 
too much, that is all that ails her." 

To know something is not so bad a thing after 
all. Bautista made herself useful to the whole 
family ; she boiled herbs and made remedies for Ber- 
tilda's cold, for the Missionary's indigestion, for 
Pinzon's fever, for Valentine's boil, for Rosario's 
headache, and washes for everybody for whatever 
complaint. Would a trained nurse have done as 
well? She delighted the hearts of the younger boys 
by making them some wonderful rolls that looked 
like doughnuts and smelled like sour bread. Over 
these she worked one entire forenoon after spending 
two dollars of the boarding-department money for 
the materials. That afternoon she went home and 
we discovered that she had secreted over half of the 
fried rings under her shawl and had carried them 
home with her ; doubtless her wage for making them. 

She had a most wonderful way of swathing the 
new baby in wrappings. He was done up so stiffly 
that the bundle containing him could almost have 
stood alone, and nothing showed but his tiny face, 
since his hands were bound tightly to his sides. 
When the Missionary asked her if that was an 
Indian custom, she was greatly insulted. 

" Oh, no, Seiior Doctor, no Indian does her baby 
up; they go quite naked. It was in Paris that I 
learned that most perfect method of keeping a child 
from getting uncovered in the night." 

" Oh, ho, then this is a little Parisian ! Well, he 
looks exactly like the pictures of Siwash Indian 
papooses." And Siwash he was from that day when- 
ever his father spoke of him. 

Bautista had learned another custom in Paris; 
she could not get through the days, much less the 



BAUTISTA 49 

nights, without frequent drinks of wine. She scorned 
chicha — nothing but imported wine did for her and 
she insisted upon having it served with all her meals. 
She bought it herself, as we refused to serve it. Since 
we could not prevent her drinking, and it seemed 
inadvisable to dismiss her, we let it pass. 

She had a most astonishing appetite. She had 
food brought to her every two hours during the 
day and a great pile stacked up for the night. 
Neither the Missionary nor I had ever seen anything 
like it. He said that it reminded him of a mill, 
Cleofa running up with food, with coffee, with 
chocolate, with wine, and everything disappearing 
forthwith. However, Bautista did her work faith- 
fully and her patient lived, so we were ready to for- 
give her any disgust that she may have caused us. 

Friends vied with each other in sending gifts to 
the new baby. We collected as varied an assort- 
ment as ever was seen. Some of the boys of the 
Colegio went to the market-place on Saturday after- 
noon and came back tugging a month-old goat which 
they presented to Small Son as their gift. The for- 
lorn little creature was lonely in the great play- 
ground and day and night kept up a pitiful bleating 
that sounded like the wail of a human baby. During 
the day the boys tried to comfort and content him 
by carrying him around in their arms. Rosario's 
sympathy manifested itself in a practical way; she 
took the goat to bed with her at night. She, who 
weighed nearly two hundred pounds, occupied a 
single width bed, together with her seven-year-old 
daughter and an enormous cat, which she declared 
kept her feet warm at night by lying on top of 
them; yet such was the woman's good-heartedness 
that she was ready and willing to add on the goat ! 



50 THE LEAST OF THESE 

I asked the Missionary to make sure that the 
boards of her bed were strong and new as I did not 
wish to be startled some night by any sudden crash 
from the servants' room, and the goat might prove 
the straw that broke the camel's back. 



VI 
LA SENORITA BERTILDA LOPEZ 

IT was with great relief that, a few weeks before 
Small Son's birth, I had handed over the keys of 
the house to Bertilda Lopez. Hers was a slim 
girlish figure, surmounted by a large head with an 
old face. I wondered if it were her seriousness and 
conscientiousness that put such an expression on the 
face of an eighteen-year-old girl. 

General Lopez, Bertilda's father, had figured hon- 
orably in the last civil war of his country, but he 
had expended himself and his substance on the losing 
side; hence life for him had become anything but 
easy. He had educated his two daughters, — Ber- 
tilda had graduated from one of the best girls' 
schools in the city, — but the family lived in a poor, 
hand-to-mouth way. So when, as a special favor, we 
begged Bertilda to act as housekeeper for us, her 
father allowed her " to make a little visit at the 
Colegio," and the girl received her monthly stipend 
as a " gift from the gracious Sefiora Mauda." 

What Bertilda lacked in executive ability she 
atoned for by her painstaking honesty. Slow to 
think and to act, she was most delightfully sure, 
and she had mysterious ways of her own for 
extracting from Rosario's packets the change from 
the marketing, a thing I had never yet accomplished. 
One sensitive point did she possess; she considered 
that the pupils and the boarding boys did not show 
her the respect she deserved. Both the Missionary 

51 



52 THE LEAST OF THESE 

and I continually admonished the offenders to be 
careful of their manner toward our friend during 
her visit in our house, and we ourselves set the exam- 
ple by showing General Lopez's daughter the utmost 
deference. 

On Saturdays, the big market days, Bertilda 
dressed herself neatly in a black skirt, gracefully 
draped a silk mantilla about her slender figure, and 
daintily tripped away on her high heels to carry the 
money and to assist the cook in her purchases. Dur- 
ing the many hours of the week that I was in the 
class-room with the boys, she watched Teresa and 
Small Son so that my mind was at rest concerning 
them. 

The Missionary had been very ill and was but 
traveling the road to recovery. About two o'clock 
one night, both of us being awake, we caught a 
faint sound as of distant thunder. Since the storms 
of Bogota are usually free from thunder, sneaking 
upon us unawares, we decided that the low heavy 
reverberation must mean another earthquake. How- 
ever, the chairs and tables did not commence to slide 
around as is usual when a quaking of the ground 
occurs, yet the murmur increased to a steady rumble 
which grew in volume. Soon we distinguished the 
mumble and roar of many voices, the thud and tramp 
of hundreds of feet. Not understanding the sig- 
nificance of the sounds we felt no fear, only curiosity. 
Louder and louder grew the tumult until we caught 
the words shrilled above all else, " Down with the 
Yankees ! Kill the Yankees ! " 

" We are being mobbed ! " cried out the Mission- 
ary, as he jumped from bed, stopping only to catch 
up his bathrobe. 

Almost immediately came the thud of stones 



LA SENORITA BERTILDA LOPEZ 53 

against the brick front of the Colegio, followed by 
the crash of glass. The school awoke with a many- 
throated scream. Servants and boys rushed into the 
corridors, wailing and shrieking. The Colegio in- 
stantly became a lunatic asylum. 

The Missionary leaped down the stairs and run- 
ning to a school-room applied his feeble strength 
to moving one of the long heavy study benches, call- 
ing upon the older boys and the servants to help 
him. No one, except Bertilda and one small fourteen- 
year-old boy, responded. Everyone else in those 
huddled groups was so busy bewailing his fate and 
calling upon his favorite saint that he gave no atten- 
tion to orders, until in desperation the Missionary 
knocked a few of their heads together to bring them 
to their senses. Even then they were afraid of the 
shivering glass and flying stones and hung back. 

Bertilda and Enrique worked steadily and rapidly 
at the Missionary's side, dragging benches to the 
windows to barricade them, dodging the shattering 
glass and falling stones as best they could. Although 
badly cut about the head they faltered not in their 
task. 

When an improvised battering-ram was brought 
to play upon the door, even the Missionary's heart 
sank. " Kill the Yankees ! Down with the Yan- 
kees ! " shrieked hundreds of voices, to the accom- 
paniment of breaking glass, of thudding stones, of 
crunching bricks, punctuated by the boom of the 
battering-ram against the oak planks of the heavily- 
spiked door. The door creaked and groaned and 
strained against the iron bar that secured it; yet it 
held. The benches, piled high, resisted entrance 
through the demolished windows, and gradually the 
mob dispersed. 



54 THE LEAST OF THESE 

As soon as quiet was restored in the street we des- 
patched Valentine after a doctor for the Missionary. 
The next morning the American government through 
its Minister saw that a guard was stationed around 
our building. When he was able to do so, the Mis- 
sionary publicly praised Bertilda and Enrique for 
their bravery. 

The mob solved two of our problems ; Enrique, who 
had been our most mischievous, troublesome boarder, 
became one of our steadiest boys; and never again 
did we need to struggle with the household that 
proper respect be shown the heroic daughter of a 
well-known general. Rather was it that our 
young men were soon in a fair way to spoil the 
senorita. 

Whether it was the halo of glory that encircled 
Bertilda because of her self-possession in time of 
peril, or her precise, domestic ways that formed her 
chief attraction, I know not ; but suddenly, out of a 
clear sky in which we had discovered no love clouds 
forming, Senor Gutierrez, a young man who had 
come to us recently, proposed to General Lopez for 
the hand of his daughter. We were very much sur- 
prised as, to our certain knowledge, there had been 
nothing going on that resembled a courtship — no 
withdrawing into corners, no smiling over secret 
understandings, no surreptitious glances, no blush- 
ing, — none of the things one would expect under 
similar circumstances in America. But all these 
and many other evidences of a love affair burst into 
blaze as soon as the engagement was announced; 
apparently the fire had only gathered force from its 
repression. 

For six days our transformed little housekeeper 
walked on air. Her whole appearance was different. 



LA SEtfORITA BERTILDA LOPEZ 55 

She seemed vitalized, electric; her large plain face 
beamed with happiness; her voice thrilled her 
listeners; her step became quick and decisive. 

Then the storm burst. The Missionary felt it his 
duty to find out more about the young man who 
desired to unite his life with a girl so worthy as Ber- 
tilda. Sefior Gutierrez had been in our house but a 
month, having come to us from the coast. We had 
not been attracted by him, and from the first were 
suspicious of him. Upon investigation, the Mis- 
sionary found his suspicions more than justified; 
the man was. so base that we immediately denied him 
the house. 

We were forced to inform poor little Bertilda, 
scintillating happiness, that her hope was vain; she 
could not marry Sefior Gutierrez. The attitude that 
the girl took amazed us. Naturally she did not 
believe our statements and required proof; we had 
expected that and had the proofs ready for her. 
Then, instead of recognizing the impossibility of 
union with such a man, the girl indignantly declared 
that she saw no reason why she should not marry 
him; that she would marry him were he twice the 
villain he had proved himself. She said that we had 
no right to forbid her meeting him and she packed 
up her belongings to return at once to her father's 
house. 

One interview did she have with her lover before 
he sneaked away to the coast. She informed us 
afterwards that she had promised him life-long 
fidelity and had assured him that she would marry 
him at any time he came for her. Then commenced 
a correspondence, a one-sided affair, for after the 
first two or three weeks none of Bertilda's letters 
were answered. A few months later rumor whispered 



56 THE LEAST OF THESE 

that Seiior Gutierrez had married a woman at the 
coast. 

Several times in the months that ensued did I call 
upon the Senorita Bertilda. Shut into an ill- 
smelling, unkempt, damp house, the girl did nothing 
day after day but sit with folded hands and think 
of her disappointment. She had already lost all 
semblance of youth when last I saw her; thin, sallow, 
slouched, at eighteen she appeared an old woman. 
All my efforts to arouse her were vain; she was 
sunken in a half-stupor, leaden, responding to no 
appeal. 

You who are ready to smile at her, pause a 
moment. Not one girl in twenty of Bertilda's class 
and circumstances ever receives an offer of marriage ; 
to be of good family and poor is almost fatal to 
marriage prospects. Practically no avenue of work 
is open to such an one, unless she be able to teach, 
an ability that Bertilda did not possess. No pleas- 
ures or diversions fall to her lot ; she is not expected 
to perform any of the common menial duties of her 
parents' home, — those are for the doddering old 
servant. 

Neither be in a hurry to cast the first stone at our 
Latin American sisters if they do not demand in 
a husband all that a North American woman does. 
Were they to make such demands there would be far 
fewer marriages than there are now; yet of the 
things that contribute to the existence of present 
conditions in the most of South America, the lack 
of marriage is probably the most deplorable. No, 
there is no condemnation in our hearts for this poor 
girl. We yearn over her and over all such as are 
cheated of every woman's birthright, a home and 
children. 



yii 

ROSARIO'S VACATION 

A MULE-DRIVER asked for the Doctor Rev- 
erendo, saying that he had come from a vil- 
lage two days distant from Bogota and he 
bore a message for one, Rosario, said to be in the 
Colegio Americano. The Missionary took the soiled 
wrinkled slip of paper which was extended to him 
and sent for Rosario. She came, received the paper 
and looked at it a long time, unfolding it, turning 
it from side to side, staring fixedly at the writing it 
bore. Handing it back to the Missionary, she asked 
him to read it to her. 

The note was written by the use of phonetic syl- 
lables, separated here and there to make them appear 
words, but with no real conception of where one 
word should end and another begin. Many syllables 
not in themselves words stood alone, and again many 
words were written together as though one. Nothing 
was correctly spelled. Read aloud, it sounded like 
Spanish; looked at, it made no sense at all. It was, 
in fact, a fair sample of the letters written by the 
one or two men in each village who pretend that 
they know how to write and so serve as amanuenses 
for the whole village. With the greatest difficulty 
the Missionary made out from the rambling syllables 
that the old mother of Rosario lay ill in that town 
and begged for her daughter. 

" I go," declared our cook. " I go even now." 
57 



58 THE LEAST OF THESE 

" And what do we do for a cook ? " asked the Mis- 
sionary. 

" That little woman whom I know in the plaza, 
she it is who comes to cook for the Colegio when I 
tell her." 

" If you can put some capable woman in your 
place in the kitchen, you may go for two weeks, but 
we shall expect you to return at the end of the fort- 
night." 

" Nothing is more certain, my Seiior Doctor. 
Return I surely do." 

" How are you going to reach this town? " 

" I walk on my feet, of course." 

" It is a long journey for so heavy a woman as 
you are, Rosario. Could not you go on the train 
that runs to Zipaquira? That would take you half 
way." 

" In all my life, Doctor, never have I been on a 
train. That thing frightens me." 

" Nonsense ! Take this money for your fare and 
ride on tomorrow's train as far as it goes ; you will 
have walk enough after that. Remember that we are 
counting on your coming back in two weeks' time." 

" I return, Senor Doctor, God permitting it." 

Fifteen days crawled by and nine women pretend- 
ing to be cooks passed through my kitchen, some of 
them pausing two or three hours, some of them mak- 
ing a stop of a day or two. Three of them tarried 
long enough to hide under their shawls the towels 
and napkins drying on the lines, and most of the 
little belongings of Teresa. 

The reasons for their leaving were trivial. One 
morning, with the Missionary sick upstairs and 
Small Son wailing continuously, I was closeted in 
the office with thirty- three boys, trying to give a 



ROSARIO'S VACATION 59 

lesson in English. On the only bench in the room 
were seated twelve boys, while the others were 
crammed into the window-seat, hanging over book- 
cases, dangling their feet from the table ; boys to the 
right of me, boys to the left of me, boys to the front 
of me and boys behind me, and not one caring 
whether or not he could say in English, " The blue 
bird sits on the tree." 

The fifth rap at the door since the class began! 
I open the door to find myself confronted by my cook 
of two days, booted and spurred, as it were, for 
instant departure. She stands looking at me, saying 
nothing. 

" What does this mean ? " I ask, as I see that if 
there is to be any conversation between us, I shall 
have to commence it. 

" I go. I remain not one little moment longer." 

"But why?" 

" That Valentine, he it is that says that I myself 
burn more charcoal than those other women." 

" Suppose that you do? You have only to ask 
for more if you need it." 

" It is the truth, then ? To my Senora it appears 
that I burn more charcoal? " 

" Yes, you do burn more, but I have not com- 
plained, have I? " 

" I go. Do me the favor of my money." 

" The money is locked away, upstairs, and I am in 
class. You may come for it in the afternoon." 

I turn to the snickering boys. The last pretense 
of interest in the blue bird on a tree has vanished. 
The boys know, and I know, that there is but one 
common thought between us; that deserted kitchen 
and the breakfast hour almost upon us. When it 
comes to the choice between studying a foreign Ian- 



60 THE LEAST OF THESE 

guage and having his breakfast, there is no hesita- 
tion on the part of a boy. I dismiss the class and, 
closing my ears to the needs of my family upstairs, 
betake myself to the kitchen. 

Indeed, during those fifteen days of Rosario's 
vacation, I spent the most of my time struggling 
with the toppling kettles, blowing charcoal that 
would not burn, weeping from the smoke and cinders 
in my eyes. I discovered why all Colombian cooks 
have such small eyes and keep them half-shut. For 
a month after the cook's return, I could do no 
studying because of the condition of my eyes. 

Rosario did come back. Never did I think that 
she would, and I saw in anticipation a long line of 
disappearing cooks being unrolled before me, extend- 
ing to the end of my life, which end I felt would 
not be long delayed if this experience continued. 
Then Rosario walked in upon me, and I would not 
care to say whether the tears with which I greeted 
her were provoked by the smoke or came from pure 
thankfulness and joy. 



VIII 
MARIA RODRIGUEZ 

CALLED " half-lady " was Maria because she 
wore shoes on the street, but very much more 
than half-lady was she in nature. So far as 
looks went she was not remarkable, just a quiet, 
neatly dressed woman, nearing forty years of age, 
who carried a dignity that commanded respect. 
She came to the Colegio to look after things gen- 
erally and after Small Son particularly, while I 
spent eight hours of every day in the class-room 
with the boys, eleven hours each week in outside 
Bible classes and five nights out of seven in the 
church, eight blocks distant. 

Maria was perfectly trustworthy, whether it were 
money or son that we committed to her care. She 
knew far more about the possibilities of Colombian 
food than did Rosario, and our menu never before 
presented so great a variety or such tempting viands 
as it did under her supervision. She did not attempt 
to keep books, as Bertilda had done, but when she 
turned over her accounts to me they were always 
correct. She cared for Small Son from the time 
she dressed and fed him in the morning, after I had 
gone to class, until she bathed him and put him to 
bed for the night. Usually I told him his good-night 
story, but if I failed to appear Maria invented one 
for him. In the afternoon she took him for a long 
walk to a park and returned on a street car, which 

61 



62 THE LEAST OF THESE 

always greatly delighted the child. Later, sitting on 
the floor surrounded by hosiery and blocks, she alter- 
nately mended stockings and helped build trains. 
When I would leave them to go to my work, my son 
would kiss his fingers at me and remark, smilingly, 
" May you go contentedly and very far," as his 
Maria had taught him to do. I never had reason to 
believe that she was anything but patient and loving 
with the little boy whom she trained to obedience and 
decorum. 

Did callers arrive while I was in the class-room, 
Maria would take them to the parlor and pleasantly 
entertain them until I could go to them. When we 
entertained our friends at dinner I depended greatly 
upon the woman; she had been head servant for 
some years at the Spanish legation and she knew 
what was proper for a dinner in Bogota. A bower 
of beauty would she make the dining-room, the table 
glowing under a wealth of brilliant poppies or soft 
sweet-peas, dotted with confetti. With her own 
hands she would prepare delicious soups out of (to 
me) unknown materials, form wondrous curlicues 
from ordinary potatoes and produce beautiful crea- 
tions which she called desserts. Then she would tuck 
her fluffy dark hair under a tiny lace cap and per- 
form prodigies with the uncouth dining-room girl. 
Maria never made mistakes in serving the courses, 
was always her gracious, attractive self in the doing 
of it. 

A poor old woman, a member of our church, was 
reported dying. As neither the Missionary nor I 
could possibly leave our work at that hour to go 
to her, we sent Maria, who found the woman dan- 
gerously ill from pneumonia, and alone. Maria 
thought that she knew someone who might be 



W\ 


I^ 1 


3 


, ft Jr^^ « ■ : .. 


• "pf , 


*^ K , 


It*-, ial 


BEE. ¥ * * ■ 


« * 



Bertilda 
and the " Siwash. 



Maria Rodriguez, presiding at small 
son's third-birthday fiesta. 




Maria Jesus escorts the children to Tereza, the only Colombian servanl 
the park, Benigna carrying baby boy. with negro blood ever with us. 



MARIA RODRIGUEZ 63 

secured to care for the sick woman, so went to see 
if she could find the helper. It was nearly dark 
when she, weary, with white paindrawn face (for she 
was not a strong woman), returned to report that 
her quest was vain ; she had found no one. 

After dinner the Missionary and I hurried over to 
see the sick woman. We found her in the dampest, 
moldiest room I have ever seen, festoons of cobwebs 
hanging from the ceiling, chairs dropping to pieces 
from decay. There in a filthy bed lay the poor 
creature, having received no care and but little food 
for three days. We decided that if we did not wish 
her to die there alone we should have to take her 
to the Colegio, since we knew of no one whom we 
could get to stay with her and care for her. 

Of the policeman who was stationed in front of 
her door, waiting for her to die, we asked permission 
to move her. He referred us to the captain of the 
district, whom the Missionary set out to find. I 
returned to the Colegio and sent back Valentine 
with bathrobe, steamer-rug, blankets, while Maria 
and I cleared the ironing-room, confiscated the 
bed of an absent boy, and set it up in the room. 
Maria heated water, and all was in readiness when 
the Missionary arrived, bringing the poor old woman 
in a coach. She was in an indescribable condition, 
but Maria did not object to assisting me to bathe 
her and to put her into some of our things before 
we laid her on the clean bed. Maria was herself 
too ill for me to allow her to stay with the woman 
that first night, although she offered to do it for 
me ; after that night she cheerfully took her turn at 
watching, and was faithful in helping us until we 
found someone who could devote her whole time to 
caring for the sick woman. 



64 THE LEAST OF THESE 

Maria Rodriguez was the most valuable servant I 
have ever had, and a sensible companionable woman 
besides. 

We were sent to open a new station in a city out 
towards the Venezuelan border. When we removed 
to the city in " hot country," Maria could not go 
with us, as we desired her to do, since from the four 
dollars per month that I paid her she was caring for 
her old mother who would not consent to leave 
Bogota or to have Maria leave her. Shortly after 
our departure the doctors said that Maria should 
undergo an operation, and she was taken to the city 
hospital, at that time so crowded that one-half the 
patients, nearly one thousand in number, some of 
them surgical cases, were lying on the floors — the 
cold brick floors of clammy Bogota ! 

Maria was operated upon, successfully, and the 
doctors said that she would be quite all right within 
a few days. Two nights later the nuns, who are the 
only nurses, had the patient sit up in a chair while 
they changed the bed-linen. Maria died from hemor- 
rhage a little later — a useful life sacrificed to igno- 
rance. 



IX 
CESAR 

WE were eleven days on our journey from 
Bogota to the city in " hot country " 
where we now dwell. The first three days 
out we had three mule-drivers, a new one each day. 
Number One developed a sore foot, and could not go 
on. Number Two put the cargoes upon the mules so 
badly that they fell off every few hours and were 
constantly being readjusted. In the one day the 
backs of several of the mules were cut and lacerated 
from the bad loading. Number Three was half 
drunk, and departed in the stillness of night carry- 
ing with him everything about the montura that he 
could manage, spurs, cargo-straps, a saddle-blanket. 
Then our luck changed; we secured Cesar, an 
intelligent, unlettered youth who had lost all his 
front teeth. From the first day we enjoyed his quaint 
conversation, his stories of thrilling adventure, his 
homely philosophy of life. By his simple recitals 
there was laid open before us the inwardness of the 
life of a mule-driver, in all its dreary ugliness ; the 
responsibility for his own animals and for those not 
his own, the endless hours of plodding barefooted, 
under blistering sun, up steep trails, down jagged 
descents, of risking his life to save a cargo when 
fording turbulent streams, of awkward struggles 
with " crazy " mules, who persisted in lying down 
with a cargo, or in crowding some mate over a cliff, 

65 



66 THE LEAST OF THESE 

of days with a pitiful allowance of food or with no 
food at all, of nights lying close crowded in a packed, 
suffocating hut where he was not able to uncrumple 
himself and stretch out. All this and more was 
revealed to us, unconsciously, by our simple-hearted, 
good-natured man who never once complained of his 
lot. 

He cared so faithfully for our mules, was so wise 
in the loading and driving of them, that they kept 
in perfect condition, a thing very unusual in an 
eleven-day journey. He was equally thoughtful of 
our comfort and well-being, and helped us to bear 
cheerfully the hard knocks of the trip, smoothing 
them all that it was possible for him to do. The 
almost insurmountable difficulty that beset us upon 
the whole journey was the obtaining of food for 
ourselves and our beasts of burden. One may exist 
for a long time on a little salty water, known as 
beef-tea (provided that one can obtain the water!), 
but mules must be fed, unless one wishes to find him- 
self sitting stranded on some mountain side with an 
exhausted or a dead animal under him. 

One night we seemed to have met our Waterloo. 
By urging our mules over difficult trails we had 
managed, just before dark, to reach a lone house 
stretching its considerable length along a rocky 
ledge, and looking white and inviting as we plodded 
up to it. 'Tis a way they have, these Colombian 
hostleries, of appearing chaste and attractive from 
a distance, especially if the setting sun touches up 
their white-washed walls with a blaze of gold. But 
we are not deceived thereby; too well we know the 
dirty, crawly interior, the filthy, smelly surround- 
ings of the from-a-distance fair white buildings. 

As we approached the inn we caught a glimpse, 



CESAR 67 

on the opposite side of a deep gorge that was mate- 
rializing in front of us, of a narrow river falling 
a sheer five hundred feet into a pent-in crevice below. 
The fall was so perpendicular, the distance so great, 
and the volume of water so inconsiderable that, 
directly the water had left its mountain bed, it was 
converted into floating spray which spread out to 
fill the gorge. Our eyes on this phenomenon we per- 
mitted our weary animals to stumble up the last cliff 
and land us jerkily in the midst of the motionless, 
staring group of muleteers who lounged about the 
door of the inn. 

Before we dismounted, the Missionary and Cesar 
extracted such information from the proprietor of 
the inn as they were able. Why is it so difficult for 
some races of people to give a direct answer to a 
direct question ? It required a tiresome half hour for 
us to learn: no, there was nothing for any animal. 
Yes, of course our mules could spend the night in 
the corral but there was nothing, no grass, no water 
in that corral; for weeks it had been dry, but quite 
dry. No, nothing, but nothing, was there to cut for 
them. Yes, all those sacks contained green coffee; 
did the senor think in feeding that to his animals? 
Impatiently, slouched wearily in our saddles, we sat 
our humped, spiritless mules, whose ears lopped as 
dejectedly as though they understood the conversa- 
tion and realized that their fate hung in the balance. 

At last the proprietor admitted that he had green 
sugar-cane growing, but added that no one could be 
found to go for it now that the darkness had settled, 
soft and warm, about us. The Missionary under- 
stood the futility of asking any man to risk his life 
in a canefield after dark, in a wild tumultuous region 
peopled by snakes. But he offered good money to 



68 THE LEAST OF THESE 

any man who would lend him a machete, saying that 
he would attempt to cut the cane himself. Cesar 
showed his toothless gums in a grin as he remarked: 

" Doctor, you cannot do that thing. Ever in your 
whole life have you cut anything with a machete? " 
The Missionary reluctantly admitting that he never 
had, the man continued, " I go ; I cut that cane, the 
animals are fed. Do you, Doctor, attend to some 
beds for the Senora, the Senorito and your honorable 
self." 

" But, Cesar, you have three hours' work before 
you with these mules; they are all to be unloaded, 
their backs washed down, the cargoes taken care of, 
— you ought not to go." 

" I go, I do it all in time." And off the weary, 
foot-sore fellow went, cheerfully rendering the extra 
service. 

The Missionary, by paying ridiculous sums, finally 
induced a half-dozen men to go to Cesar's assist- 
ance; thus was the cane speedily and safely cut. 
Then commenced the monotonous chop, chop, chop, 
which we had learned to know so well. The cane is 
haggled into bits before it is fed the mules, who 
devour it most greedily, stalk and seed. 

We held another protracted conversation with the 
proprietor. It has ever seemed strange to me that 
Colombian inn-keepers are so reluctant to receive 
good, paying guests. No, there was no room apart 
for the Senora. All travelers slept on the floor 
of the dining-room. Yes, the muleteers would 
sleep on that same floor. No, the table was 
too narrow to make up a bed for the Senora; 
it was just a single plank, could she sleep on 
that and not roll off on the men under the table? 
Not a glimmer of humor could we distinguish on 



CESAR 69 

the man's seamed face or in his half-shut eyes as he 
held his cigarette between his fingers and, with an 
exceedingly bored expression, replied with the utmost 
indifference to our questions. 

The Missionary persisted until he secured per- 
mission for us to sleep in the coffee store-room, which 
opened into the corral where scores of mules were 
stabled. Have you any idea what an overpowering, 
repugnant odor thousands of pounds of fresh green 
coffee have? We balanced ourselves on the immense 
sacks and listened to the braying and fighting of the 
mules, punctuated by the protesting cackle of the 
barnyard fowls, and the howl of the usual contingent 
of dogs. 

Fortunately the night was short. We arose- at 
half past two and by moonlight, bright beyond all 
belief, took our plunge in an ice-cold mountain- 
stream. We were in the saddle long before daylight. 
Cesar it was that advised so ambitious a start; he 
was very nervous concerning that day's stretch of 
trail. We had a difficult bit of travel ahead of us ; 
the descent of a precipice, five thousand feet into a 
gorge, the crossing of the river responsible for the 
gorge, and, on the other side, a straight clamber of 
six thousand feet to a paramo, a tableland desert. 

It was an enchanting hour for a ride. The soft 
dim radiance of the moon with her quiet subdued 
light had a most soothing effect upon us, after many 
days of the blistering glare of sun on white rocks. 
Things around us took phantom shape and grew 
interesting from their very air of mystery. The 
gorges on either side of us, as we slowly felt our 
dim way along the cliff, were brimful of the white 
chiffon of dropped-down clouds, so close we could 
almost reach out our hands and touch it. The 



70 THE LEAST OF THESE 

drapery of the skies, lavender vestments embroidered 
with silver stars, seemed about to descend upon our 
shoulders. The gurgle of a brook near at hand and 
the music of a distant waterfall were in our ears, the 
perfume of flowering trees and the scent of dewy 
shrubs were in our nostrils, the friendly pressing 
embrace of the woods was about us and the magic 
of the calm cool night possessed us. We wondered 
why we had been journeying in the hot, restless day 
when we might have traveled in the dim, peaceful 
might. I put the question to Cesar. 

" My Senora, I beseech you be prayerful not 
frivolous at the beginning of this so terrible a 
journey. And listen to me; let your mule do his 
will, do not you try to guide him. Look you at the 
mountains and the gorges, so many are those gorges, 
and beautiful! When that sun rises it will be won- 
derful, but wonderful ; the thing most beautiful that 
ever you saw. Look at that, but look not down. 
Your mule, let him alone; he knows how to go. Do 
not you touch the reins, neither do you look at the 
trail." 

At the first pink flush of daylight we commenced 
the descent. By ninety-five steep, short inclines, 
turning every six feet to face the opposite direction, 
we slid and floundered down the precipice and two 
hours after sunrise found ourselves perpendicularly 
under our starting point, five thousand feet above us. 
We caught the first faint glimmer of dawn gliding 
stealthily over the mountains, searching out the giant 
forms of towering cliffs. We descried the spirit of 
the night, fleeing, leaping from cliff to cliff, skulking, 
hiding, trying to escape the mocking smile of her 
enemy, the sun. Reaching fingers of light pointed 
out to us, one by one, the gulches, the ravines, the 



CESAR 71 

overhanging cliffs, clothed in clinging draperies of 
grey mist. Scores of mountain peaks gleamed into 
view, and dozens of gulches sneaked in the shadows 
at their bases. The grey mists fled after the night 
and blue and silver lights slipped into their places. 
Shadows took form and, here and there, gigantic 
trees loomed threateningly. Rosy tints kissed moun- 
tain crests while the soft blues dropped lower and 
lower until they blended with the indigo of the 
gorges. Splashes of color began to dash them- 
selves promiscuously on steep slopes, and rock-layers 
flamed with brilliant hues. Presently all the battle- 
ments and turrets blazed forth in full glory, and the 
pleasing lights and shadows modestly retired farther 
and farther into the ravines. 

It was with a distinct sense of loss that we watched 
the full glare of day turned upon this elusive scene. 
As eager expectation is more pleasurable than ful- 
fillment, so was the mystical light of the moon, which 
left much to the imagination, preferable to the 
garish flame of day thrown recklessly on every crack 
and crevice of jagged mountain side. Like the light 
of public life it brought out ugliness as well as 
beauty and strength, and it left nothing to the 
imagination. Every streak and fault in rock forma- 
tion, brilliant reds, purples, yellows, thrown boldly 
against each other, gaping throats of dry river beds, 
sparkle and dash of mountain cascade, — nothing was 
hidden. The merciless sun painted everything clearly 
for our gaze long before he showed his blazing face 
to us above a mountain. 

The contrast in color was most striking ; no artist 
would have dared reproduce it. Limpid lakes of 
soft blue and silver hung suspended around peaks, 
the indigo of deep ocean, splashed recklessly with 



72 THE LEAST OF THESE 

browns and yellows, daubed mountain slopes, blood- 
red streaks slashed and gashed faces of cliffs, a nar- 
row silver thread, which was a river framed in vivid 
green, glinted through each ravine, while peaks, 
cliffs, gorges, ravines, — all were suffused in the wilder 
lights of purple and orange. Here was nature most 
lavish. Within the sweep of the human eye she 
flashed out all her beauties, and caused puny man 
to hold his breath in awed amazement. 

The descent was made in absolute silence but for 
the click of the feet of our mules. Once Cesar stood 
in my path and put a detaining hand on the bridle 
of my mule as he directed my attention to the sheer 
fall of thousands of feet below us. 

" It was at this point, Senora, that I lost a mule, 
but my very best, on the trip before this. A fly bit 
him, he reared, and went over backwards, crashing 
to the bottom. There it was, at the bottom of the 
mountain, that I took that cargo of coffee from 
him; but, oh, it was awful! The Senora thought I 
need not to be so anxious for this trip; now she 
sees? In the gorge below there, where you see the 
shimmer of that big river with the flashing high 
bridge, there it is that we take our breakfast ; but we 
must be quick. In that vale there is a fly, a most 
pernicious fly; if he but bites the animals they are 
dead at once. It is he I am afraid of. It makes six 
months that he bit one of my mules and she died 
then." 

" So you have lost two mules recently, Cesar? I 
am sorry for that ! " 

" You have my many thanks, Senora," with grave 
dignity. " Yes, it makes me a poor man, to be sure. 
For neither of those mules had I yet paid ; I pay for 
them now, little by little, and they are both dead." 



CESAR 73 

Cesar helped us find lodging when we reached the 
large city where we were to commence work, and 
where we knew no one. On his subsequent visits to 
our city he came to inquire for our welfare. We 
discovered that the meagre profit he derived from his 
trips was eaten up at the tiendas, a combination of 
inn and grog-shop, so whenever he was in the city 
we allowed him to stay in our house, after we had 
succeeded in renting one. One night he brought with 
him a tall muscular fellow, a giant in strength, whom 
he introduced as a friend of his and for whom he 
begged the privilege of being allowed to sleep in the 
house. After Cesar had set off on his journey to 
Bogota, Francisco returned again and again to stay 
at our house. As he, too, was a muleteer, I won- 
dered at his long stop in the city. 

One night when we had left him as usual, lying 
on the floor of our zaguan with his ruana wrapped 
about his head and the rest of his body guiltless of 
bed-clothes, I heard the sudden tinkle of a dish 
pushed against another. Awakening the Missionary, 
I whispered: 

" Someone is in the dining-room. I believe it is 
Francisco." 

The Missionary, light in hand, hurried to the 
dining-room. There stood the man, apparently too 
slow of wit to move or to make any effort to hide 
himself. 

" Francisco, what are you doing here? " the Mis- 
sionary gravely inquired. 

" It is only that I am with a hunger very great 
and I thought perhaps I find something to eat 
here." 

" If you were hungry why did you not ask us for 
food? We would have given it you," 



74 THE LEAST OF THESE 

" I am no beggar, Sefior ! " drawing himself up 
with insulted dignity. 

" I will get you food now," and, suiting the action 
to the word, the Missionary came to ask me for the 
keys of the cupboard. 

" What are you going to do with him after you 
feed him? " I asked. 

" Why, what should I do with him? " 

" You will please lock him in some room until 
morning. I shall not feel safe with him prowling 
about the house." 

" After he eats he will go to sleep, I doubt not. 
He will be ashamed of himself." 

" Do not count on it. Coals of fire rarely burn 
on a Colombian's head. I prefer that you lock 
him up." 

"But where? There is only one room, the dark 
room, that I can lock in this house." 

" What difference does the darkness of a room 
make to him in the middle of the night? Put him 
in the dark room, by all means." 

Very reluctantly, and with many apologies to the 
man, the Missionary locked him in the dark room, 
releasing him at the first promise of day. I felt 
that Francisco should be told that, since he had 
abused his privilege, he could not sleep in our house 
again; evidently the Missionary did not wish to go 
to such lengths, as within the week the man again 
applied at the door for admittance. 



BARBARA 

BARBARA was the first woman to offer herself 
for service in our new home. After several 
days of struggling on alone in the extreme 
heat, trying to arrange our few possessions in the 
house we had at last secured, I was glad to accept 
the girl, as unpromising in appearance as she was. 
A soiled garment, torn places held together by 
safety-pins, straight black hair hanging unkemptly 
about a greasy-looking face, feet dirty beyond 
description, — was it any wonder that the Missionary 
remarked : 

" What do you expect to make out of that crea- 
ture ? We cannot take all that filth into the kitchen." 

" She explains that she has come from the coun- 
try, has been two days on the trail and is travel- 
stained. She will bathe and change tomorrow and 
be ready to prepare the noon breakfast. I intend 
to try her." 

Most Colombian servants are specialists of the 
highest degree. She who cooks will not serve the 
meal ; she who serves at table will not cook ; she who 
irons will not sweep; the dining-room girl will not 
wash dishes; only a cook can be prevailed upon to 
do the marketing, but the cook cannot be induced 
to approach an ironing-board; and there you are! 
All work that the servants refuse to do falls to the 
lot of the mistress. 

75 



76 THE LEAST OF THESE 

Barbara was simple and unpretending. She was 
content to be an all-around general housemaid, and 
was not above doing anything that was asked of her. 
The vigorous way in which she despatched the six- 
o'clock coffee, tidied herself up and was ready before 
seven to do the day's marketing was a refreshing 
sight. On Saturdays, bent double under the week's 
supply of vegetables and fruit, she hurried home 
from the plaza to help me with the sweeping and the 
cleaning. As we had not yet opened a school, we 
lived simply and happily with the one servant and 
she had leisure hours at her disposal, but she drew 
the line at one thing ; she would not scrub. So men, 
women, children — anything that we could get from 
the street — were enticed in, by ones and by twos, 
to try their luck at scrubbing. 

We have learned the futility of attempting to 
teach a Colombian to scrub. Real scrubbing is an 
unknown art, practiced by no one, and with none to 
be found with an ambition to learn it. A world 
that has existed all these ages without scrubbing can 
continue so to exist for all any Colombian servant 
cares, 

When I was new to Bogota and lay ill (from 
overwork and overzeal), I watched seven women on 
six successive days paddle in water, occasionally 
splashing and dabbing at one door. Then I arose 
from my couch in desperation and scrubbed the door 
myself. 

When we were about to move into another of the 
numerous rented houses in which we have lived in 
this city, the Missionary remarked: 

" There is no use of my trying to secure anyone 
to clean up that house so that we can live in it. I 
shall have to do it myself, first or last, and it may 



BARBARA 77 

as well be first, before my patience is worn to 
shreds." 

So he took a week's vacation from his ministerial 
duties (the school being also in vacation) to scrub. 
One door showed an interesting development. As he 
scrubbed and scraped with a sharp knife, digging 
through successive layers of dirt, he came upon what 
appeared to be bread-dough. He called the man 
who was pottering around, pretending to help. 

" Benito, what is this ? " 

" Of a truth that ought to be bread-dough, 
Doctor." 

" But see what quantities of it are on this door 
after I scrape off the top layers of filth ! " 

" It is of a truth, Doctor ; but there is much." 

" Was this house ever used as a bakery? " 

" It does not so appear to me. It is not so in my 
life-time." 

However Benito's old mother, coming up to hear 
what the Doctor was talking about, well remembered 
that, more than twenty years before, the house had 
been a public bakery, and this very room was used 
as the mixing-room. It had remained for the 
American Missionary to clean the dough off the door 
twenty years after its accumulation. 

Speaking of scrubbing, a vivid picture flashes be- 
fore me. We were in Bogota and we were trying 
to teach Dominga to scrub, but our instructions were 
constantly interrupted by the quarreling and whin- 
ing of the woman's two children. Suddenly, exas- 
perated, she seized one of her children by the back of 
the neck and ducked him into the scrubbing-bucket, 
pushing his head down under the water, not one, but 
a dozen times, until we protested that the child would 
be drowned. Giving him a good shake by way of 



78 THE LEAST OF THESE 

drying him, she deposited him summarily in the 
court, in the full blaze of the sun. The Missionary 
remarked that the little bronze fellow, sitting immov- 
able, looked exactly like a Chinese god. 

The flaw in Barbara's character soon made itself 
apparent. We had purchased a kettle, a good, 
expensive, made-in-Germany kettle, which we had 
never yet used. Deciding to have puchero for break- 
fast, I told Barbara to prepare it in the new kettle 
since none of the old earthen pots would hold it. 

" And where is the kettle, my Senora ? " she asked. 

" Why, you have it in the kitchen, to be sure." 

" I, no ! That kettle is certainly not in the 
kitchen." 

A vigilant search, commencing in the kitchen and 
ending in the parlor, revealed no kettle. It was not 
in the house, yet no one had access to the kitchen, 
except Barbara herself. 

In Colombia we keep under lock and key all silver- 
ware not actually needed for each meal. One day, as 
we seated ourselves at the table, I found neither knife, 
fork nor spoon at my place. 

" You have forgotten to set a place for me, Bar- 
bara," I remarked. 

" But Senora, I cannot find either the knife or 
the fork of you, and the spoons are nowhere. They 
are not in that cupboard, surely. Who knows where 
they are? " 

" Barbara, you know they must be in the cup- 
board. You are the only person in the house except 
ourselves ; if they are lost I shall hold you account- 
able for them." 

" There are none, my Senora," doggedly. 

And none there continued to be until I went to a 
trunk,- unlocked it, and took out another set. Of 



BARBARA 79 

what use to discuss the matter? Of what use to keep 
back Barbara's paltry wages? She needed them, and 
all that I could give her besides, to dress herself even 
half decently to appear on the street as our servant. 

Thus it went on. One little thing after another 
disappeared. One day it was a pair of Small Son's 
shoes; another, three new umbrellas brought from 
Bogota and of value in Colombia. The girl must 
have realized that we knew she was selling our things 
in the streets, probably for a small fraction of their 
value. Why put up with it? I was ill, had under- 
gone an operation under the open sky of our patio, 
by doctors who never in their lives had performed 
the operation; they had read up on it, and talked 
it over with us, so they ventured it. For many 
weeks I hung to life by a slight thread, with no 
nurse but the Missionary and no servant but Bar- 
bara. She was good to Small Son, not yet four 
years old, so she stayed. 

One scorching afternoon she offered to take the 
child for an hour to the park, a block away, as for 
weeks he had not been outside the heated house, where 
was not a green thing, scarcely a breath of air. 
The seemingly interminable hours of the afternoon 
dragged by. Barbara and Small Son did not appear. 
At last, just as darkness swooped down upon us, 
she approached my bed, dragging a very weary little 
boy after her. At the welcome sight of him a great 
rush of relief stopped for an instant the beat of 
my heart. Kidnaping is not unheard of, even in 
Colombia. An attractive foreign child in the hands 
of an unscrupulous woman who had been selling 
everything that she could conveniently carry out of 
the house, — I had cause for apprehension. 

" Oh, Barbara, where have you been all these 



80 THE LEAST OF THESE 

hours? My heart has been sick, I have worried so 
about Son." 

" It is not that we have been in any place par- 
ticular, my Senora. It is that we passed by the 
bridge of that little stream for that street where 
went you and the Doctor to baptise those children 
of Don Rafael." 

" You never took Son away out there in this 
heat ! Why, it is a good five-mile walk ! " 

" Of course, no. So far as that we do not go. It 
is merely that we seat ourselves under a tree by the 
road; then we return here." 

Small Son stood regarding her solemnly, but said 
nothing. It was not until many months later that 
he confessed the truth, and even then it was inad- 
vertently done. We were in the States when some- 
one asked us if we had ever tasted the fried ants 
which in Colombia are considered the greatest of all 
delicacies. 

" No, none of us ever have, although we have had 
many opportunities to do so," replied the Missionary. 

" Yes, Father, I have," spoke up Small Son. " Do 
you remember the time when Mama was so sick and 
that day when Barbara took me for a walk? She 
told Mama that we did not go as far as Don 
Rafael's, but we did, and they gave me fried ants to 
eat. I do not like them; they are too peppery." 

One morning a few days after the walk, Barbara, 
dressed in her starchiest things, came to my bed to 
announce that she was leaving. 

" Leaving, Barbara ? But why ? " 

" It makes too much to do with the Senora straight 
in bed. I go." 

And go she did, in spite of our protests. In fact 
we learned that she had carried away her box the 



BARBARA 81 

night before in fear that we should examine it for 
missing articles, a thing it would never have occurred 
to us to do. 

A meek little woman with a month-old baby tied 
to her breast took Barbara's place and messed 
around in the kitchen. She informed us that Bar- 
bara had gone to a home of her own, to be established 
by a policeman in a little hut at the edge of the 
city. This accounted for the disappearance of our 
silver, kettles and glassware. Surely Barbara was 
setting up house-keeping in style ! 

As a rule these " homes " are not furnished beyond 
a clay pot or two, a few boxes for chairs, and a mat 
which, spread on the floor, serves as a bed. There 
is no table, no bedstead, no chairs. A piece of gourd 
takes the place of spoons, knife and fork, and the 
food is eaten from the kettle in which it has been 
cooked — an easy way to dispense with dishwashing. 

Doubtless the transitory nature of this " home " 
accounts in part for its meagre equipment, for it 
must be borne in mind that this arrangement is never 
abiding. It is a thing born of passion, and it en- 
dures only until passion flickers, a month, a year, 
rarely longer. Then the unfortunate girl, her cloth- 
ing in tatters, finds herself and her unwanted child in 
the street, penniless, homeless and friendless. 



XI 

ENCARNACION 

WHEN our six-months' furlough in the 
States had expired, three-months-old Lit- 
tle Daughter was very ill, so the Mis- 
sionary was forced to return to South America with- 
out his family. I followed him a few months later, 
making the journey with not only the two children, 
but also a box of blooded chickens with which we 
hoped to improve the race of domestic fowls in 
Colombia. 

The Missionary had expected to board at an inn 
until his family came. As soon after his arrival as 
possible he rented a house in which to live and to hold 
religious services. Finding that he could not keep 
well on the grease and garlic of the inn, he secured 
a woman to cook for him at home. To cheat the 
scandal-mongers, he employed a tottering old crea- 
ture with a face that stopped little short of hideous, 
besides being of a dullness extraordinary. 

Old Encarnacion knew nothing of cooking, her one 
idea being to put everything into a pot and call it a 
" salad." The Missionary lived upon " salad " three 
times a day for months. Vegetables, fruits, grains, 
whatever the woman found in the plaza, all went into 
the salad, were scooped into a bowl and set before 
the Missionary for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 
Neither could the withered old creature arrange the 
table. The Missionary brought out table-linen and 
attempted to teach her. 

83 



ENCARNACltfN 83 

" First the heavy pad, then the cloth, evenly, so ; 
then the napkin here." 

" Yes, yes, Senor, of course, I see it all." 

At dinner he found the table as he had left it. 
That night when he went to bed he was astonished to 
see the table-pad spread neatly and precisely over his 
bed. He removed it, carried it to the dining-room 
and again arranged the table, which he found bare. 
The next morning he tried to impress upon Encarna- 
cion that she was to leave the table as she found it. 

" The husher belongs here, not on my bed. Are 
you sure that you understand?" 

" Yes, yes, Senor, of course, I see it all." 

The table remained set during the day. When the 
Missionary was ready to retire there was the table- 
pad again staring up at him, stretched carefully over 
the bedspread. 

He tried to teach her to make a bed; yet during 
all those months that she pottered around believing 
that she was serving her senor most efficiently, she 
never could learn that the two sheets of a bed are 
placed together. The Missionary always found one 
sheet folded and laid across the foot of his bed with 
the table-husher on top of it. The woman was not 
obstinate, she was simply incapable of learning. 

One day, only, did she remain after my arrival. 
She was caring for a sickly little grandson who was 
about Small Son's age. His weazened face and 
such of his body as his scrap of clothing revealed, 
which was the greater part of it, were covered with 
sores discharging in a revolting manner. During 
that first day he played with my son, handling the 
wonderful playthings, the like of which he had never 
dreamed, in all his starved life. Once I saw him pat- 
ting the baby's hand as she lay in her cradle, and 



84 THE LEAST OF THESE 

he stooped over to kiss her as he had seen her small 
brother do. After that, although I was loath to do 
it, I was cruel enough to shut the poor little thing 
in the solar alone. 

At dinner time Encarnacion poured all the baby's 
milk, which I had prepared and set aside to cool, into 
her salad. At night I told the Missionary he had 
more patience than I ; he had managed with Encarna- 
cion for three months, but one day was enough for 
me. In the morning she should leave. 

" You would never turn the poor old creature 
away? After she has been so good to me, too?" 

" I fail to see in what she has been so wonderfully 
good to you. She herself has been telling me today 
that she almost never had your salad ready for your 
dinner when you wanted it at six o'clock, and that 
she was accustomed to set it on the table and leave 
it for you to eat after your night classes, at nine or 
ten. Think of your going without food from eleven 
in the morning, after lunching upon her wretched 
salad, until ten o'clock at night, and then eating that 
stuff cold! No wonder you have been ill so much! 
Why didn't she have your meals on time? She had 
nothing else to do in the whole day but to prepare 
them." 

" There are things of which you do not know. 
Let me tell you what she did a few weeks ago. You 
know that I go each week to the city of Rio Negro 
to conduct a Monday evening service for men. One 
Tuesday morning just before daylight, Encarnacion, 
who was alone in the house, was awakened by the 
sound of bullets accompanied by yelling. A party 
of young men had been enjoying themselves all night 
in some grog-shop, and were finishing off their 
carousal by shooting up this house. When Encar- 



ENCARNACldN 85 

nacion sensed what was happening, she seized her 
machete and rushed out to defy the men, calling 
upon them to go away and leave her Doctor's home 
alone. There she stood, clinging fast to her machete, 
with the bullets flying around her, trying to make 
herself heard and understood by the drunken men. 
The neighbors told me of it when I returned, and the 
woman herself for days could talk of nothing but 
her fright. Her feeling of responsibility for the 
house and for me drove that poor timid old creature 
to an action as brave as that. She is, of course, 
unable to learn anything, but she has done her best 
and I do not like to see her turned off, although I 
realize that she will be of no use to you, who need 
efficient women. What will she do? She is getting 
too old to earn her living." 

" What did she do before she came here ? You 
may pension her if you like, but not here, as we 
cannot make a county poor-house of our home, in 
addition to having it a public school, a church and 
frequently a hospital. I shall let her go and we 
must manage someway until we find someone else." 

" I do not see how we are to manage," he answered 
dubiously. 

There are certain things in the work of a house- 
hold that it is impossible for us to do. A gentle- 
man may not carry home the marketing in a basket 
on his back; there is a knack, which I have never 
acquired, in grinding food between two stones ; there 
is high art in balancing a kettle of soup upon shift- 
ing, crumbling fagots laid upon a brick shelf 

We took the first woman who offered, Beatriz. 
She was one of your specialists, carrying a hauteur 
of manner that closely approached insolence. She 
entered as dining-room girl, nurse girl and laundress ; 



86 THE LEAST OF THESE 

under protest at that, declaring, " I cannot do so 
much thing." 

All the trunks and boxes, in spite of being encased 
in rubber, were wet from their mountain journey on 
mule-back, and their contents were developing an 
alarming state of mold. When I requested the 
haughty Beatriz to help me unpack and carry the 
things into the sunshine, she mumbled and grumbled ; 
it was not so specified in the contract. When I 
demanded that she do the marketing and help a little 
in the kitchen until I could secure a cook, she de- 
parted with an impressive dignity. 

The Missionary remarked, " It is just what you 
might have expected. No high-class servant can be 
prevailed upon to work for us, and our simple estab- 
lishment would never do for a girl of Beatriz's 
training." 

Each succeeding day brought one or more women 
and for weeks I tried them all. Each in turn proved 
hopeless, and I myself became more and more so with 
every day that passed. 

Eventually we settled down to Natalia and Elvira. 
The former had never cooked and she was not big 
and strong for carrying marketing the distance of 
a mile from plaza to our house, but she was neat, 
attentive to instruction and willing to do her best. 

I venture to say that no other kitchen in our whole 
city presented so shining an appearance as did ours 
while in the hands of Natalia. The new pots and 
pans that I had brought out from the States hung 
in glittering rows on the clean, whitewashed wall, 
and every potato paring and corn husk were whisked 
out of sight, until the place showed as smiling a face 
as did the little cook herself. Most Colombian cooks 
seem to flourish best in a soiled apron ; but Natalia, 



ENCARNACION 87 

with no greater weekly allowance of aprons than I 
had always granted the cook, was ever fresh and 
clean. Her brisk pecky little ways reminded me of 
a robin, and made me feel superfluous in the kitchen, 
so I left her to herself, certain that she needed little 
supervision. The six months before Natalia broke 
under the strain of the cook's work in the school 
which we established, I count as the freest from 
kitchen worry of any I have experienced in Co- 
lombia. 

Elvira, heavy of figure yet alert of mind, had 
worked during her childhood in a convent. There 
she had learned cleanliness of person, precision in 
caring for a room, the greatest perfection in ironing 
that I have ever seen, and a general astuteness in all 
the affairs of life. I liked her work, I sometimes 
enjoyed her lively chatter, but I never felt that I 
could quite trust her. Yet, in the long catalogue of 
women who have served me, none has ever been more 
thoughtful in sickness or more respectful in bearing 
than Elvira. 

The Missionary had remarked, " We cannot ex- 
pect our servants to be self-respecting, clean and 
honest, if we leave them to exist as most of their 
class do. What self-respect can a woman have who 
lies on the floor at night, and sits on the floor by 
day to eat her food from a kettle with her hands? 
I shall buy bedsteads for their room and fix up a 
corner of the corridor with a table and chairs to 
serve as a dining-room. Do you attend to making 
their room pleasant and to securing dishes for their 
use on the table. They should have some sort of a 
stand with a wash-basin and towels; a mirror and 
a cake of soap will go a long way toward giving a 
woman self-respect." 



88 THE LEAST OF THESE 

In carrying out his suggestions I went a step 
farther, furnished the beds with sheets, pillows and 
pillow-slips, and arranged a place where they might 
hang their clothes instead of dumping them on the 
floor. Thus we began our missionary work with our 
prospective servants on the theory that cleanliness 
and decency may lead to godliness. Many of our 
women were appreciative of what we had attempted 
to do for them and made an effort to live up to what 
was expected of them. Some there were who declared 
that they had never sat in a chair and would not 
know how to do it; that they could not manage a 
knife and fork and preferred not to bother with 
them ; that soap chapped the skin and was injurious ; 
that they had never slept in a bed and were afraid 
of rolling out if they tried it. But these were few 
in number, most Colombians being as quick and as 
eager as " Yankees " in adapting themselves to bet- 
ter conditions. 



XII 
LUIS 

WE cannot purchase good milk in the market- 
place. It is brought long distances in 
skins, poured into uncovered mud-kettles 
which are held between the knees of sweating women 
who sit on the cobblestones of the unsprinkled plaza. 
It is full of the infected dust trod by thousands of 
diseased feet, it sometimes curdles when it is boiled — 
yet boiled it must be — so we dare not give it to the 
children. 

We bought a cow and a calf. Introducing them 
through the front and only door of our residence, 
we assigned them one of the rooms of the house ; there 
are no barns in Colombia. Obviously we could not 
allow our gentle beasts to pass the days as well as 
the nights under our roof, yet Natalia had neither 
time nor strength to lead them for two miles to 
corral each day. 

Water in our city in hot country is a serious 
problem. All of it, for whatever purpose used, is 
brought for some distance on the backs of burros or 
of women. The men who drive the burros are of the 
most worthless class in Colombia; their promises 
amount to nothing. " Yes, Sefior, I most certainly 
will bring your honorable self always those eight 
cargoes of water all those days. Of course I do it." 

And of course he does not do it. We go to bed 
with no water in the house. We get up with no 



90 THE LEAST OF THESE 

water in the house; not a drop for baths, to make 
the coffee, to wash the dishes. The Missionary goes 
to the street and accosts every driver of water- 
donkeys that he sees. 

" No, Senor, I cannot allow you this water. It 
is a contract." 

" No, Senor, it is not that I am a public water- 
carrier. This is for a house particular ; I am the boy 
of Don Alejandro." 

Disgusted, wearied, having dissipated the fore- 
noon, the Missionary, by paying twice its worth, 
secures two cargoes of water in time for the cook 
to begin the preparation of the eleven-o'clock break- 
fast. The work of the household, as well as that of 
the Missionary, has stood still awaiting the water. 

We decided that it would be economy to bring our 
own water. Thus we added a burro to our posses- 
sions and allotted him a corner of the cow's sleeping 
apartment. As a consequence of these purchases we 
acquired a man. 

Luis came to us frankly stating that he was just 
from prison where he had served a long term. He 
offered to do whatever was assigned him for a mere 
pittance — his board, if we would give him that 
much; only allow him a chance to commence again. 
We did not ask him his crime and he did not confess 
it, so to this day we do not know for what he was 
apprehended. Tall, erect, agile, his was an unusual 
figure for a man of his class. His crafty face, with 
the shifting eyes, bore a long scar across one cheek 
and into one eye. He always wore a large hat pulled 
low over his face. Whatever his failings there was 
one thing about him that atoned for much in our 
eyes ; he loved the Missionary and his family. Espe- 
cially was he devoted to Small Son. Could the 



LUIS 91 

Seiiorito accompany him on this or that errand? 
Would I allow him a few minutes in which to whittle 
out a plaything for the Seiiorito? 

Who will ever know what strange life lay back of 
such a character as Luis'? He had served in the 
commissariat of the army; he had seen the most of 
Colombia, having wandered from city to city ; he had 
worked at almost everything, and his knowledge of 
several of the trades was not inconsiderable, — this 
in a land where few men of his class know any trade 
at all. He mended our shoes as well as our chairs, 
he did our marketing and prescribed us remedies, he 
waited upon table and painted our house, he swept 
our patios and cooked our meals, he cleaned our 
blackboards and read our books ; and everything that 
he did was well done. Through all his work he car- 
ried an unapproachable dignity that earned him a 
bad name with his class. Moody, silent, with fits of 
unreasoning anger which blazed into mad fury, he 
was called " difficult " and none liked him. How- 
ever, we came to repose confidence in him and to 
think that we could not keep house without Luis to 
fill every niche and gap. 

A strange man and stranger in nothing than in 
the romance of his life, — for I verily believe that it 
was the romance of his life ; he loved Elvira. 

Nothing that she did suited him. With a leering 
sneer he would make the most biting remarks about 
her vanity, the while he watched her profusely daub- 
ing her brown skin with powdered starch; he was 
critical of every new ribbon or new waist ; he bitterly 
ridiculed her use of tooth-brush and nail-file ; he dis- 
agreed with whatever she said, and mocked her every 
utterance ; he found fault with her outgoings and her 
incomings, with her care of the children, her sweep- 



92 THE LEAST OF THESE 

ing. Yet he loved her; his eyes followed her every 
movement and he never tired of praising her skill in 
ironing, her quick repartee, her satin skin. But 
never in her presence, — oh, no ! His words of admi- 
ration were reserved for our ears alone. He was 
fiercely jealous of her. Elvira was an attractive girl 
although not pretty. A pleasing air of crisp neat- 
ness and of conscious ability pervaded her, so that 
when she carried out Little Daughter for her airing 
the senoras frequently asked me where I had secured 
so unusual a servant. 

I had never heard of, or even dreamed of, anything 
like the way Elvira and Luis quarreled. Again and 
again did the Missionary request that I dismiss 
Elvira so that Luis would behave himself. How could 
I bring myself to dismiss a woman who was neat? 
Yet how could we manage without Luis? 

" It would cost me more to get a man to paint the 
house than Luis' wages amount to in a year. Where 
would we ever find another man who would go for 
medicines in the middle of the night, or help out in 
the kitchen at times ? " 

Thus argued the Missionary, and both servants 
stayed on, quarreling worse and worse every day in 
spite of our protestations. 

One morning, just at the rising hour, Luis burst 
into our room in a blazing passion. He was shirt- 
less but he held in his hand and shook in our faces 
a few tatters of the garment he should have been 
wearing. 

" Look you ! The work of Elvira ! Elvira ! " he 
screamed. " She tears the shirt from the back of 
me. The tigress ! " 

" And what did you do, Luis ? " calmly asked the 
Missionary. 



LUIS 93 

Spanish, fast and furious, poured from his 
lips, his face distorted by frenzy. He had thrown 
away her tooth-brush, and kicked over her wash- 
basin, grinding her scented soap into the brick floor 
with his heel. 

" The things of senoras in the hands of a servant ! 
Bah!" 

The Missionary, with his usual tact, despatched 
the man upon an errand that kept him in the country 
all day, and remarked to me: 

" The explanation of all this lies in the occur- 
rences of last evening. While I was conducting the 
men's meeting, I saw Elvira in the street walking 
up and down with the son of the woman who keeps 
the tienda on the corner. Luis believes that it is 
because Elvira ' apes the senoras,' as he calls it, 
that she is noticed by better men than he is. Luis 
is jealous. You must keep Elvira off the street 
evenings." 



XIII 
VISITS 

SHORTLY after my return from the States I 
was again ill, five weeks in " straight bed." 
Luis and Elvira were thus left very much to 
their own devices. Fortunately we still had reliable 
little Natalia in the kitchen. How wise was the great 
dramatist when he reminded us through the lips of 
Anthony that it is the evil men do that lives after 
them! Natalia was too good to have tales told of 
her. When she left us she entered a German family 
as nurse girl to a plump little fraulein, and there 
she is still, grown so corpulent with her easy life that 
her twinkling little eyes constantly recede more and 
more from view. 

Among those who came regularly to inquire after 
me was Barbara, bearing upon her breast a sickly 
little scrap of mankind, her son. The woman was 
ragged and filthy to a degree and she brazenly 
begged clothing for herself and the child. 

" Are you in service now, Barbara? " I asked. 

" The Senora Mauda understands so little ! How 
is it that I can be in service with my little baby? 
And who is the senora that employs me now? But 
certainly no one." 

" How do you live ? " 

" Of course, as all the mothers carrying new babies 
live. On the back I carry the wood and hay, the 
bananas, the yuca. But I am the very most tired 

94 



VISITS 95 

and always with a hunger very great, and the little 
one does not continue well. He thinks in dying, it 
seems to me. He is all that I have; I cannot con- 
form myself to his dying." 

" If you would bathe him every day, Barbara, 
head and all, and try to keep the things around him 
clean he would grow stronger. Try, too, not to 
have him done up so tightly in this dirty woolen 
shawl ; see, it has irritated his skin until it bleeds ! " 

"And how is it that I avoid that, my Senora? 
That shawl is all that I have with which to strap 
him to my breast when I carry that cargo on my 
back." 

" It is a pity that you have to carry him all day 
in the heat, strapped to your perspiring body. He 
is overheated all the time, and I suppose that you 
keep even his head covered because of the fierceness 
of the sun's rays. Poor little thing, how he suffers ! 
But it will help him so much if you will bathe him 
every day; I would show you how to do it were I 
able to sit up. Commence with his head, soap it 
well, — see, it is all festering now ! " 

" But, Senora Mauda, never would I put water on 
a baby's head ; with that he comes out a fool." 

" Oh, Barbara, that is such a silly notion ! There 
is no truth in it at all." 

" All the world believes that thing." 

" Yes, all your world does believe it, I admit. And 
see how the babies suffer because of it! Look at 
those children of mine; are they fools? Have they 
not good hair ? " 

"The Little White Angel" (which was what all 
the servants called Little Daughter) " has the hair 
most beautiful in the world. It appears pure new 
silk." 



96 THE LEAST OF THESE 

" Yes, it is like raw silk and her head has always 
been washed with soap. So has Small Son's and he 
is no fool. Have you any place where you can 
bathe your child? " 

" And what place could I have? " 

" Where do you stay nights? " 

" I sleep on the earth in a little corner of the hut 
of one little old woman who lets me, towards there," 
and she pointed to the south. 

" You may bathe your baby here now, if you like, 
and Elvira shall help you and show you how to 
do it." 

But Elvira would not. Of what was the Senora 
Mauda thinking to let such creatures in the chil- 
dren's room, using their bath basin? 

" Bring the servants' wash-basin then. This 
child's wailing would cease if it were bathed, pow- 
dered well and wrapped in a cool soft cloth." 

" No time have I to bathe that brat. I have 
much that I do now. Surely just for the reason that 
I am the Senora Mauda's servant she has not the 
right to put me to bathe such a creature. I do not 
do it." 

There was Indian blood in Elvira; when she 
wouldn't, she wouldn't. The best that I could do was 
to have Small Son bring me some of my little girl's 
things and a box of powdered starch with soap and 
towel. These I presented to Barbara and she prom- 
ised that somehow she would manage to bathe the 
child, head and all, that very day. I had doubts 
about her keeping her promise, especially as to the 
head, but it appeared that the woman was ready 
to try anything that would save her child's life. 

A week later she returned very much dressed up 
in one of my white waists, into which she had every- 



VISITS 97 

where sewed strips of yellowish bagging to make the 
garment some six sizes larger than it was originally, 
so that she could stuff herself into it. The puny 
baby was so transformed that I scarcely recognized 
him. Reasonably clean, his head better, he hung, 
quietly asleep, loosely suspended from his mother's 
breast by the bath-towel. Barbara glowed like a 
poppy over the improvement in her child. Good 
news had I for her. The Missionary had secured her 
a place in the little cigarette factory where, if she 
proved apt at the work, she might earn enough to 
keep herself and child alive. 

" The only difficulty is that the hours are very 
long, and you will have to leave the baby alone all 
day on the damp ground in that dark hole of a hut, 
for of course you cannot take him with you." 

" If I should be able to pay even so few pesos I 
leave him with one little woman that I know. She 
is now the woman of a gentleman ; her he has estab- 
lished in a little house, even with a servant. Once 
was she a friend of mine. Now of a certainty she 
is very proud, but for a little money I believe that 
she puts my baby, clean and beautiful like he is, 
to lie by the side of hers. But it is too good that 
the Doctor and the Senora Mauda are with me, and 
I merit that thing not at all." 

" But you are going to deserve it, Barbara. You 
will raise up your son to be clean and strong. You 
must bring him to see me again soon." 

Quavering old Encarnacion was also among my 
visitors during those weeks of sickness. She brought 
the scrawny little grandson with her. 

Small Son takes delight in giving away his pos- 
sessions. It has always been difficult to prevent his 
stripping himself of playthings and clothing, so 



98 THE LEAST OF THESE 

eager is he to share with less fortunate children. 
One day when he was three years old I caught him 
handing out through the bars of the window a pair 
of his prettiest shoes to a group of open-mouthed 
children, every one of whom was stark naked. Now 
that he was older he kept a box into which went 
everything that, after consultation with me, was con- 
sidered appropriate to be given away. From the box 
he chose things for the little Juanito while the old 
woman sat hugging her hands under her shawl and 
talking to me. 

She rambled on, muttering and sputtering, so that 
I scarcely understood a word of what she was trying 
to say. After half an hour of this strain, when I 
was hoping that she would go, since Elvira had 
already carried out my instructions and set down 
on the floor at the woman's side a tiny basket of food 
for her to carry home with her, she suddenly drew 
back the corner of her old shawl and disclosed a live 
hen. A pert little black hen was it, that blinked and 
squawked as soon as the light struck it. Encarna- 
cion tucked it more snugly under her arm as I stared 
at it in astonishment. 

" Look at that little hen mine," she said. 

" Yes, I am looking at it. What are you going 
to do with it?" 

" No rooster have I ; this hen only. But I wish 
to raise the chickens, for that I bring here the hen. 
I put her with those hens of the Doctor. Her eggs 
I carry home and when I have enough I raise those 
chickens." 

The wonder of it; that Encarnacion could think 
all that out so nicely ! I laughed at the astuteness 
of the woman who had never learned the use of a 
table-pad. 



VISITS 99 

" That seems to me a very good plan, Encarnacion. 
The only question is, how are you going to tell your 
egg from the other eggs ? " 

" That egg I know. It is a particular egg," 

" Well, if there is any egg at all it will probably 
be yours as our fancy hens are not laying. They 
object either to the heat or to living on bran; yet 
corn is so high we cannot buy it and oats are 
unheard of in this country." 

" Those oats, what might they be ? " 

" Oh, they are a grain not raised here. Have you 
seen our fowls lately? Elvira has named them. 
That tall lanky black rooster she calls John-and-a- 
half. You know John-and-a-half, of course; Don 
Sefior John Cortes, so exceedingly tall and narrow 
that the whole town knows him as John-and-a-half? 
Elvira says that our black rooster of the long legs 
reminds her of Don Cortes, so the whole school calls 
him John-and-a-half." 

My pleasantries were all wasted on Encarna- 
cion. She stared dully at me, comprehending 
nothing. 

" Take your hen to the solar and put her with the 
others. Son, bring Juanito to his grandmother now ; 
they are going home." 

Thus was I rid of them. 

Each day thereafter the old woman returned to 
the house for the egg and if there was any egg to 
be found in the solar it was given to her. This went 
on for a long time until one day Luis stood respect- 
fully before me and asked how much longer it was 
to continue. For a week I had been giving classes 
to the more advanced of our high school boys, since 
there was no one else to do it, except the Missionary, 
already overburdened. But I was greatly hampered 



100 THE LEAST OF THESE 

by an over-powering weakness that caused me to 
hang to the furniture and desks for support. 

" Oh, Luis," I answered. " I had forgotten the 
existence of the old woman and her egg. Is her 
hen still laying? " 

" Most certainly not. It has never laid. Could 
a thing so small lay an egg? It is not of the bigness 
of a decent bird." 

" But it is no bother to you? You do not object 
to keeping it here? The poor creature probably 
cannot buy anything to feed it." 

What a disagreeable, sinister smile Luis had! It 
impressed me most unfavorably. 

" My Senora Mauda certainly does that which 
she likes and it is always the best. But to me it 
appears not good that the only one fresh egg we 
have that old woman carries off each day. Senora 
Mauda needs that egg herself. Is it not that she is 
of a paleness that hurts me much?" 

" Thank you, Luis," I breathed, most humbly. 
" When the woman comes today you may tell her 
to take her hen away. It is time she was raising 
those chickens." 



XIV 
ELVIRA AND LUIS 

WHEN it pleased them to do so, Elvira and 
Luis could conplot together in a won- 
drous fashion. 

A family whom we had tried to interest in Bible 
teachings commenced to attend our services, and to 
show their friendliness towards us they sent us a 
macaw. The bird was of a splendor and gaudiness 
that appealed to Small Son, and his delight knew 
no bounds, but the pleasure derived from the gift 
was all his ; the rest of us did not want a macaw. 
We could have possessed several had we cared for 
them, as they are always easy to acquire, but they 
are dirty creatures, noisy and mischievous. We 
already had quite enough noise and mischief in the 
house and to spare, crowded as we were between four 
walls, jumbled together with schoolboys, servants 
and children. 

Elvira shared our disgust at the introduction of 
the macaw into the family and, unlike us, she ex- 
pressed her disapproval in loud and vigorous terms. 
The Missionary and I dared do no more than smile 
sadly and remark upon what a gorgeous bird it 
was. Had we even looked as though we did not 
greatly appreciate the gift, the donors would have 
been immediately apprised of the fact, distorted by 
exaggerations, and the family would never more have 
appeared at church. No one depends upon the Bell 
telephone system for the propagation of news in our 

101 



102 THE LEAST OF THESE 

city. We have a much more efficient system of our 
own, without the bother of using receivers. Appar- 
ently the air is electric and carries wireless messages 
impromptu. 

One day did the macaw remain with us. The next 
morning when Small Son hurried to the kitchen to 
find his pet, who, by the way, was so cross and 
" angry " that the child did not dare approach it, 
closely, the bird had flown. Just how he had flown 
with his heavy body and clipped wings was a wonder 
to all of us. Small Son's laments and sobs made 
the whole household uncomfortable. Elvira's sym- 
pathy with the child was perfect ; she tried in every 
way to console him and when she found there was 
no comforting him except by securing the bird, she 
herself offered to go to the neighboring houses to 
ask if by any chance the lazy macaw had climbed 
upon our roof and descended into the wrong patio. 
This is a trick easy for cat or fowl to perform as 
the roofs on a whole block are joined together at 
all sorts of angles. Elvira's morning work awaited 
her, so I said that Luis should be sent on the tour 
of investigation. He went, most reluctantly. An 
hour later he returned, reporting that he had failed 
in the quest; no such bird had been seen anywhere. 

What a mysterious disappearance of a creature 
whose powers of locomotion were not much superior 
to those of a tortoise ! From the first the affair had 
an element of mystery about it, but we never sus- 
pected the truth. 

The next Sabbath the new family did not appear 
at any of the services, which fact we considered very 
strange. Perhaps they thought that we had not 
been to a sufficient degree grateful for the gift of 
the macaw. 



ELVIRA AND LUIS 103 

On Monday I called at their home and was 
greeted by the rasping clamor of a macaw squatting 
humped over in the court. The bird kept up its 
irritating gabble and, seated in the parlor where I 
could stare out at it, I remarked: 

" That macaw is much like the one you so kindly 
presented to us. Unfortunately ours would not stay 
with us ; he went off somewhere the second day and 
left Small Son in great grief. Luis searched for him 
but he could not be found." 

My hostess gazed steadily at me with expression- 
less face, but made no reply. I terminated my visit 
without having received any hint whatever as to the 
reason why none of the family had attended church 
the day before. They never came again. 

Months afterward we learned that Elvira had 
taken the macaw in her arms after dark and had 
carried him back to the donors, stating that the 
Doctor and Senora Mauda did not want the bird 
and had sent it back. Luis knew this, and when I 
sent him to hunt the macaw he went to the tienda, 
stayed an hour, and returned to report that he could 
not find it. 

What must have been that family's opinion 
of us? 

A colorless old woman, Maria of the Sorrows by 
name, was slopping around in my kitchen, posing as 
cook, when Elvira, who was endowed with a lively 
mind, decided that she was chicken hungry. Forth- 
with at ten o'clock one night, when the household was 
slumbering peacefully, she repaired to the solar and, 
before it could utter one protesting squawk, wrung 
the neck of one of our hens. Presently the whole 
fowl, head, feet and all, was bubbling merrily in the 
pot. 



104 THE LEAST OF THESE 

When we have a fowl to eat I insist upon seeing 
it before it goes into the kettle. Otherwise it appears 
before us at table with its body perfectly entire, 
down to the eyes and toe-nails. Even if the finicky 
foreign senora refuses to eat the head and feet of 
a chicken they are not therefore wasted; they are 
boiled apart and enjoyed by the servants who con- 
sider them the best part of the meal. 

Luis, who had charge of the heavy iron key to the 
door, was sent by Elvira to purchase macaroni, 
garlic, and I know not what, at the corner tjenda, 
which is grocery-store, breadshop and saloon in one, 
and is kept open most of the night. 

I can well believe it was a most savory stew that 
Elvira concocted. No sound or smell of all this pene- 
trated the inner court where we slept. In the 
" Oasis," where we were then living, the kitchen is 
so far from the rest of the house that nothing that 
occurred in it, short of an earthquake, could be 
heard in the other rooms. 

When on the stroke of midnight the feast was 
ready, Elvira and Maria of the Sorrows called Luis 
to partake. But, although it must have sorely 
tempted him, the man refused to so much as taste 
the stew. 

" And this for why ? " asked Elvira. 

" I do not rob from the Doctor. Also I do not 
eat that which is robbed from him." 

Elvira grinned at this. 

" This is not to rob. Is it not that you tend 
those chickens and even I put them water all those 
days? Most certainly this is but pay for the work 
of us." 

" The Senora pays me for my work. I have not 
to rob from her for that pay." 



ELVIRA AND LUIS 105 

" You yourself was it that helped me get the fowl 
ready." 

" That certainly I did not do." 

" You yourself was it that bought me all the things 
at the tienda, but now." 

" That, yes, is different. It is the business of me 
to buy all that which is needed here." 

" And at ten o'clock at night? " mocked Elvira. 

" And at ten o'clock at night if you send me to 
do it. That has nothing to do with the Doctor's 
chicken." 

No amount of persuasion could induce him to 
taste of the fowl. He stood at one side leaning 
against the wall, cigarette in mouth, until the two 
women had gorged to their limit and had hidden 
under their beds what they could not eat. 

Luis never mentioned this occurrence to any of 
us. The wireless telephone communicated it to me 
the next day, but none of the servants ever knew that 
I found it out. I often wondered about the hap- 
penings which the wireless may have neglected to 
bring me. 

One Sabbath morning, six months of scorching 
weather was broken by a pounding, thudding deluge 
of rain. All day long did the relenting heavens 
drench the parched, shrivelled earth until the streets 
became foaming rivers and the whole city seemed 
afloat. Gales of driving wind thrust sheets of water 
into the faces of those who dared challenge nature 
in her wildest mood by attempting to leave shelter. 
Six months of evaporation descended in as many 
hours. 

Our head-teacher and his young daughter lived 
across the treeless little park in front of our house 
and took their meals with us. It was impossible 



106 THE LEAST OF THESE 

for them to venture into the tempest so when the 
eleven-o'clock breakfast was ready to be served 1 
decreed that someone should carry their food to 
them. Elvira offered to go. She repaired to her 
room and reappeared with her ample skirts tucked 
above her knees, revealing a surprising extent of 
bare brown limb. 

As I was arranging the Ireguis' breakfast in a 
pail, Luis entered the room. He stared fixedly at 
Elvira, then turned to me and asked: 

" The Senora Mauda sends Elvira to the street 
today?" 

" She has offered to take the breakfast to the 
Ireguis." 

" Does not the Senora Mauda see plainly that this 
is not a day that a woman should go to the street? 
The thing is not possible for her." 

" Oh, well, Luis, I do not care who takes the 
breakfast to Senor Iregui so he gets it. The one 
who goes will have to use the utmost caution to 
keep on his feet in crossing the street for the force 
and depth of the water is considerable. Perhaps it 
is safer fpr you to go since you are tall and can 
wade through better than Elvira." 

Thus did he attempt to shield Elvira. 

The man was despatched and the woman went on 
with the serving of the meal, when suddenly a section 
of the mud wall between the court and the solar 
was washed into the house. Instantly a stream of 
red water, bearing mud, sticks, stones, poured into 
the court, through the corridor, and into the dining- 
room before we could make our escape. 

In the Andes mountains nothing is level and all 
cities appear to roll and tumble about the hills in a 
most distracting fashion. The narrow streets of 



ELVIRA AND LUIS 107 

these cities are gouged out by the torrents of water 
that rush through them when it rains. The fronts 
of the adobe houses, framing the streets, are on a 
level with the sidewalk, which would cause the front 
rooms to be much lower than the rest of the build- 
ing were it not that dirt is excavated for the rear 
rooms. Cellars are unknown; the floors are made 
of soft bricks a foot square laid directly upon the 
ground. If there be a little wall-enclosed back-yard, 
called a solar, it is almost certain to lie from two 
to twenty feet higher than the level of the house. 

In the Oasis, as our rented house was called, the 
solar was quite ten feet higher than the rooms. The 
newly formed lake in the solar, unable to empty 
itself by the regular channel provided for water, had 
undermined the wall and was pouring into the house. 

The Missionary, Luis and Elvira, each in as 
abbreviated clothing as possible, struggled for hours 
to thwart the malicious purpose of the impromptu 
lake while the children and I huddled on the beds 
and watched them. Fortunately it was vacation 
time and there were few boys in the house. 

Nothing could have excelled the amicability with 
which our two servants worked together. They were 
like two doves in their agreement of purpose. 

An hour before sunset the deluge ceased, as 
abruptly as it had commenced. Almost at the same 
time the exhausted Missionary waded through the 
foot of mud and water that covered our floors to 
the haven where his family had sought refuge, and 
announced that the refractory solar was at last under 
control and he could clean up and rest. The 
untasted breakfast was still spread upon the table 
and the household awoke to a cognizance of its 
hunger. 



108 THE LEAST OF THESE 

Wading to the kitchen, I prepared some chocolate. 
When I returned with the lunch, I iound Luis and 
Small Son bending absorbedly over a shoe-box filled 
with cotton upon which they were pouring a few 
drops of kerosene. 

" What are you two doing? " I asked. 

" Luis makes me a boat of fire," responded Small 
Son. 

The preparation finished, the child launched his 
boat from the threshold as Luis threw a lighted 
match into it. The household crowded to the door- 
way to watch the box. The match caught the 
kerosene, the cotton blazed up, the shoe-box bobbed 
and fluttered crazily as it tossed down the foaming 
stream that raced through the street, and a won- 
derful boat of fire it was, to be sure. 

" Whatever caused you to think of that, Luis ? " 
I asked. 

The man only grimaced as he attempted to smile, 
making no reply. 

In ten minutes the street river held dozens of 
careening, whirling flames of fire as all the boys of 
the neighborhood instantly seized upon Luis' novel 
idea of entertainment and copied it. Every door- 
way was full of smiling faces and dancing shouting 
children. Boat after boat was launched, some to 
topple over at once, others to race madly down the 
swift current, to catch up with, to pass or to over- 
ride some smaller craft. Occasionally two boats col- 
lided without overturning one another and jogged 
serenely on together, while their delighted owners 
shouted, " A marriage ! A marriage ! " 

Darkness fell quickly; the little flames that had 
balanced and danced and raced so bravely on the 
flood slipped away from sight and the neighborhood 



ELVIRA AND LUIS 109 

frolic was over. We had laughed together, although 
there was not one among us who did not have to 
turn from the fun in the street to a house buried 
in mud and water. As badly off as was the Oasis, 
we had escaped more easily than many of our neigh- 
bors, some of whom had lost entire walls of their 
houses or sections of roof. 

Monday Luis and Elvira worked heroically to 
bring us to a scale of ordinary cleanliness. 



XV 
SOCORRO 

ONE afternoon I felt it my duty to make a 
long-neglected call. I left Little Daughter 
with Elvira and took Small Son with me. 

We were gone an hour, and as we approached the 
house on our return, we saw the door standing open 
and the zaguan filled with riff-raff from the street, 
We heard screams issuing from the house, terrible 
yells and hoarse bellowings. Naturally I thought 
that something had happened to the baby and I 
grew so limp that I could not run. Small Son was 
too frightened to go on alone, so for a few moments, 
horrified, we clung together there in the street. 
Then we hurried on, more and more afraid to go 
forward as the distance to the house lessened. What 
was this terrible thing? What had happened to 
Little Daughter? 

The house gained at last — how long we were in 
reaching it ! — my first act was to clear the doorway 
of the gamin then, bracing myself, I turned to face 
whatever awaited me. 

There in the patio were Luis and Elvira. The 
man, blood staining one cheek, was dancing wildly 
around the woman, madly waving his long machete 
in her face. She was bravely standing her ground, 
although the short butcher-knife that she held seemed 
impotent in comparison with his flashing machete. 
Her dress was partly torn from her body and hung 
in long tatters. Her black hair streamed wildly 

110 




The roofs of the houses of a whole block are joined together 
at all sorts of angles." 




A street scene. 



SOCORRO 111 

about her face, giving her a savage look. Her right 
hand, swathed in a rag from her skirt, dripped 
blood. Both combatants were so infuriated that 
they did not notice me. 

My eyes took in all this at the first glance, and 
my second glance rested upon my little year-and-a- 
half old daughter, standing in her balustered bed in 
the room beyond and laughing gleefully at the 
entertainment her two adorers were giving for her 
benefit. Rallying from the rush of thankful relief 
that swayed me, I was about to make some effort 
to end the disgraceful scene when the Missionary 
burst through the door behind me and, hesitating 
not an instant, rushed at the two frenzied combat- 
ants, struck Luis' knife from his hand, ordered him 
to go to the solar, pushed Elvira into her room, 
locked the door, and pocketed the key. 

Then he turned to remark, " This is a pretty 
affair ! I heard that yelling when I was still a block 
away. I knew in a moment what was going on and 
I ran all the way when I saw you entering the house. 
I am sorry that I did not get here before you did 
and so save you this. Keep Elvira locked in her 
room until tomorrow, then dismiss her. I think we 
had better let Luis go too. We shall get on in some 
fashion." 

Elvira, reproachful, feeling herself most unjustly 
treated, protested against going. Was not her work 
satisfactory? Why should she leave because of a 
little matter of quarreling with another servant? 
That was common in all houses and the senoras 
thought nothing of it if it did not interfere with the 
work. Why was the Doctor so unjust? Yet go she 
did. 

Luis, however, stayed on, bending every energy to 



112 THE LEAST OF THESE 

help me in all ways possible to him until I should 
find someone to take Elvira's place. 

For the first week Elvira appeared every evening 
at six to assist with the children's baths and the 
tucking of them into bed. Baths are not so easily 
managed when the water must be warmed over coals 
lying on the fire-place, carried nearly half a block 
through corridors and courts and poured into a flat 
tin basin of immense proportions which sits upon the 
floor. After each bath the basin must be lifted, 
carried out to the court, emptied, returned and 
refilled. It requires a strong woman, too, to lift the 
children into and out of their tin lake. I never 
offered Elvira money for this kindness, understand- 
ing that she would have considered such an offer an 
affront. 

In Colombia birthday anniversaries are justly 
looked upon as the most important days of one's 
life and are duly honored. The date of the birth 
of each member of a family is celebrated by a party 
to which come all the relatives, and sometimes friends 
as well. Early in the day well-dressed servants are 
sent to the home of the one to be honored, each bear- 
ing a silver tray heaped with the most exquisite 
flowers, among which the birthday gift lies hidden. 
After the fashion of a wedding, all the gifts and 
flowers are arranged in a separate room where they 
often make an imposing display. In the early after- 
noon the sender of a gift arrives with his or her 
family to salute and congratulate the recipient and 
to view the gifts. To all these interested ones a col- 
lation must be served. This frequently consists of 
fried chicken and sweet crackers, imported from 
London, served with coffee and a rich syrup, into 
which green figs or some other native fruit has been 



SOCORRO 113 

dropped. Sometimes the chicken is boiled in a thick 
paste of macaroni which makes- a most palatable 
dish. 

An inconceivable amount of work attaches itself to 
any attempt to entertain guests in Colombia. The 
silver must be dug out of the trunks and vigorously 
polished; all extra glassware and dishes, provided 
there are any left unbroken, must be unlocked and 
brought to light of day; table-linen, taken from 
trunks, requires pressing; as ants, cockroaches and 
damp heat make it impossible to keep on hand many 
supplies, extra quantities of food must be bought 
and locked up until the hour of serving ; long tables 
must be constructed out of something and chairs 
and benches found for them. 

A birthday anniversary causes great inconven- 
ience and much work; but what will you? Unless 
we Americans conform to custom in this matter we 
are considered unsocial or even niggardly, since we 
are sometimes invited to the homes of our friends on 
similar occasions. 

Five days after Elvira left our house, Small Son 
celebrated the sixth anniversary of his birth. Before 
the fresh day was fairly born, Elvira arrived and 
until late in the afternoon she lent assistance in the 
kitchen, dining-room and parlor, while the woman I 
was trying in Elvira's old position spent the entire 
afternoon in sewing on six buttons. Luis, likewise, 
was at his best and vied with Elvira in being pleasant 
and attentive and in bestowing little gifts upon 
happy Small Son. 

It was with a sigh of real regret that, over the 
bathtub of the children that night, I listened to 
Elvira's account of the place she had secured where 
she would commence work the next day. 



114 THE LEAST OF THESE 

At the time we had Socorro in the kitchen as cook. 
She was good-looking, robust, about thirty-three or 
thirty-four years old (no servant is ever certain of 
her age), when according to all precedents she should 
have begun to appear aged, bent and wrinkled. 
Strange to believe, she was rosy-cheeked, plump of 
figure, bubbling with humor. I stared in amazement 
when she told me that she was the mother of ten 
children. 

" Of ten children, Socorro ? You look so young ! " 

She laughed gleefully. " Certainly I had not 
many years when my first baby came to me. She 
was a little girl and pretty, oh, so pretty! All my 
children are beautiful, my senora, more beautiful 
than their brothers and sisters." 

" Whatever do you mean, Socorro? How can 
children be more beautiful than themselves ? " 

She giggled again. " My Senora is so lacking in 
an understanding of our customs. Those children 
of mine are more handsome than their legitimate 
brothers and sisters." 

Of course; Socorro had been the concubine wife 
of some gentleman. Anyone seeing her well pre- 
served body and youthful spirits might have guessed 
it. She had not toiled in the streets to support her 
little ones; her good looks had bought her a home, 
perhaps a two-roomed hut and a servant besides. 
She and her children had been sufficiently nourished 
from the baskets of food sent her each week. I 
understood it perfectly. Were there not a dozen 
such establishments in our immediate neighborhood? 
It is the universal " custom of our country." 

" But why do you go out to service now, Socorro? 
Surely your children are little and need you ? " 

The woman burst into tears as she replied, " He 



SOCORRO 115 

has cnosen another one and it makes me work to 
give the children to eat." 

" The two dollars which I pay you each month will 
hardly clothe you and feed ten children." 

" Oh, no, Senora, neither do I have to feed the 
ten. Those children he put into service when they 
each had seven years. Three only are left to me. 
My little Enrique, oh, but I loved him the most, — 
almost the most, for was he not the little gentleman, 
the very image of his father? — him he gave to those 
Jesuits to make him a priest. Me, the mother of a 
priest! Most Sacred Mary, is it not wonderful? 
The most little one is tiny like this little white 
daughter of you. Oh, if the Blessed Virgin would 
but let me see her ! " 

"Where is she?" 

" Her I left in that town of Socorro. Surely you 
understand, Senora Mauda, that I have the name 
of my birthplace? Socorro " (help) " comes to help 
you from the town of Socorro," and off she went hold- 
ing her plump sides in the excess of her merriment. 

Each pay day while Socorro was with me she came 
asking that I write at her dictation a loving little 
note to the three children in her home town and with 
the note went the most of the woman's wages. She 
had no idea where the older children were, having 
necessarily lost all trace of them. 

One day she hurried into the house from the plaza 
and, without going to the kitchen to deposit the 
heavy basket of marketing she carried, burst excit- 
edly into my presence. 

" My Senora, you yourself cannot imagine what 
I saw with my own eyes ! " 

" No, indeed, I cannot ; tell me." 

" Certainly it was my daughter, my Rosita, my 



116 THE LEAST OF THESE 

first little baby. It was none other! Oh, but she 
has grown so tall and that handsome! It made so 
much heat in the plaza and I was with a thirst very 
great, so I went to seat myself for a moment — oh, 
just one little moment, no more; surely the Senora 
Mauda could not object to that? — in the grog-shop. 
A girl, but the most beautiful of them all, gave me 
my guapo " (hot-country beer). " Then she did not 
leave me but stood and gazed at me much. After- 
wards she said, ' You do not know me? But I know 
you, certainly; you are Socorro, my mother. I am 
your Rosita.' Oh, the years, the years that I do 
not see my child, my Rosita! And how does it 
appear to you, my Senora, I do not know her? But 
she knows me, that I am Socorro, of course, the 
mother of her. Oh, the joy of it ! My Senora, you 
do not know the joy of it! " 

As I glanced at my little daughter I silently 
prayed that I might never know just this particular 
joy that Socorro was experiencing. I thought of 
children in North America, sixty years ago, snatched 
from the breasts of loving mothers and sold into 
slavery, and I wondered. When will the mothers of 
Latin America come into their God-intended estate? 



XVI 

. CARMEN 

CARMEN'S was one of the most intelligent 
faces that I have ever seen among Colombian 
servants. 

" Yes, and crafty, too," remarked the Missionary 
when I told him that I had engaged the woman. 
" She looks bad. I fear that you will be neither 
happy nor comfortable with her in the house. You 
need as honest a woman as you can get for that 
position as she has so much to do with the children 
and she handles practically all the clothing, bed and 
table-linen in the house." 

" Yes, but I count every article before it goes to 
the washwoman, and check it up when she returns 
it for the bluing and starching. I count it all again 
after it is ironed and brought to me for inspection. 
Of course Carmen will have access to the children's 
boxes and trunks, but I must have someone. This 
woman's face shows that she can learn if she will. 
Not one of the poor creatures I have had in these 
two months since Elvira left could learn anything 
in a lifetime ; they are not endowed with the capacity 
for learning. I am worn out by their dullness and 
I shall try Carmen." 

I soon found that the Missionary's estimate of the 
woman was correct. She knew no law, no limit. Her 
service was creditable, but the blackness of her heart, 
impenetrable. Nor was she content to walk alone in 

117 



118 THE LEAST OF THESE 

her evil way; she corrupted Socorro. She had been 
in our house less than two weeks and, on pretext that 
she did not have suitable clothes for escorting the 
children on their walks, had already inveigled me 
into advancing her two months' wages, when one 
Sabbath afternoon she enticed Socorro to a dance 
and street carousal. Night fell and they did not 
return; Monday brought no servants. Luis helped 
out as he was able. I had him nail up all the boxes 
containing clothes and dishes, as I foresaw a general 
cleaning out of our possessions if we commenced on 
a long succession of new servants at that time. 

That night Baby Boy came to us. There was not 
a woman servant in the house and no nurse, other 
than an old woman who came in for a little time 
each morning. In desperation, Victoria, a lank, 
slovenly creature with a sullen face, was taken on in 
the kitchen. When she recovered from her debauch, 
Carmen reappeared and went to work as though 
nothing had happened. There was no shame in her, 
but Socorro was too penitent to show herself again. 
I allowed Carmen to stay. How could I do it? She 
alone knew how to bathe and dress Small Son and 
Little Daughter, knew where to find their things, 
understood about their food ; she was careful in these 
duties, and I could not teach anyone else at that 
time. The children's welfare overcame my scruples 
and my repugnance to the woman. 

The third day of Baby Boy's life the Missionary 
came to me, as I kept all money and account books 
under my pillow, and asked for boarding-department 
money to send Luis to buy supplies for the dinner. 

" Luis went to market this morning, as usual," I 
exclaimed. " He purchased the supplies for the 
day." 



CARMEN 119 

" Victoria has just shown me that there is nothing 
in the house to eat. The food was all eaten at noon, 
she says." 

" While I am ill Luis in my stead divides the food 
into portions for each meal before he gives it to the 
cook. Didn't he do it?" 

" Do you know how many we are feeding in the 
kitchen?" 

" Three servants. Yes, four today, because Maria 
de la Cruz is here to do some extra washing." 

" As I passed through the kitchen just now I 
counted six women all pretending to do some- 
thing. Six, besides Luis, — that makes seven to be 
fed." 

" Whatever does it mean ? " 

" I do not know. I supposed that you had hired 
them." 

" Will you please send me Luis ? " 

Luis disclaimed all knowledge of the women in the 
kitchen. 

" That Carmen, she it is that is the most disagree- 
able woman that I have seen, but ever. She says 
I have nothing that I should do in that kitchen, 
so of course I eat in the patio, and I know nothing 
of that which they do in the kitchen." 

" Send me Carmen, Luis." 

" It is not possible to me, Senora Mauda. I have 
no conversation with that woman." 

" Then please tell the Missionary to send me 
Carmen." 

Which is preferable, too much conversation with 
the dining-room girl, or none at all? Ah, Luis! 

Carmen comes. Upon her face in full development 
is the look which the Missionary detected at first 
glance and warned me against. Yes, she is hard, 



120 THE LEAST OF THESE 

and I feel weak and discouraged. How can I cope 
with her? 

" Carmen, the Doctor tells me that there are six 
women at work in the kitchen. What does it mean? " 

" It is not a thing for which to agitate yourself, 
my Senora," she replies in a voice of silk. " It is 
only that my mother comes today in order to help 
me but a little with the ironing. There is much, 
oh, so much of that ironing, and I myself have not 
time to put my hand to it." 

" That leaves two women unaccounted for." 

" That sister of mine comes in order to help my 
mother," nonchalantly. 

" The sixth woman ? " I held her to it. 

" Certainly she is but a poor old woman, the sister 
of my mother, who comes to help the cook in the 
cleaning of the vegetables. There are truly so many 
vegetables that she alone cannot clean them." 

" I can well believe it. And what pay have you 
promised all these relatives of yours ? " 

" Nothing, my Senora. But certainly nothing. 
They do all for nothing." 

" Ask Luis to come here. I shall have to send 
him again to market." 

" That Luis is not in the house." 

" Oh, yes, he is, Carmen; I just saw him. Please 
call him." 

" But Senora, that Luis is a beast. He is not even 
a Christian." All soft tones are gone now, fortis- 
simo is being played with the loud pedal on. " It 
is I, I myself, that he insults. I will not call him." 

" Then send me the Doctor," I beg wearily as I 
turn my face to the wall. 

" He is not able to come now, my Seiiora. The 
Little Angel is sick, she is with vomit." 



CARMEN 121 

"Little Daughter sick? Why was I not told? 
What ails her?" 

" Someone gave her many dulces. So much makes 
her sick." 

" Where were you, Carmen, that you allowed any- 
one to give the child candy? You know it is posi- 
tively forbidden and I am trusting you to care for 
the children. There is no one else to do it." 

Off she goes, grumbling at the much that I expect 
of her. How is it possible for one woman to do so 
much thing? Yet I had reason to know that she 
spent part of her time sitting in the kitchen, smok- 
ing a vile pipe. 

An anxious hour passed. No one came near me, 
although I called repeatedly and Baby Boy from 
his cradle at the other side of the room added his 
new little voice to mine. I grew more and more cer- 
tain that Little Daughter had been poisoned by the 
filthy dulce and was perhaps dying. As a matter of 
fact she was very ill and I had her bed placed by 
the side of mine so that I could watch her at 
night. 

Immediately after the six-o'clock dinner the Mis- 
sionary came into my room and remarked, " You 
must get rid of Victoria. We cannot endure her for 
another meal." 

" Of Victoria ? Whatever can we do without a 
cook ? What is the matter with her ? " 

" Have you seen her since she entered the house? " 

" No, she came at noon that first day of Baby 
Boy's life. She has been here only two and one half 
days, and Carmen has acted as our intermediary." 

" Well, call her in and take a good look at her. 
Make some excuse to speak to her." 

She w^s sent for and in a few moments stood at 



122 THE LEAST OF THESE 

my bedside. A " good look " was not necessary ; a 
fleeting glance sufficed. 

" Victoria," I commenced wearily, " we find that 
we cannot manage with you and we shall have to try 
someone else. You may stay the night if you like 
and take your coffee here, but you must let Luis 
prepare the coffee. Here is your money and some- 
thing besides. " 

" And this for what ? How is it that I do not 
manage here? Is it that my Senora thinks in me 
for the fault that the dinner did not reach today? 
That fault is not of me. That woman who helped 
me clean the vegetables, she it is who carries away 
those vegetables in the pocket of her skirt. The 
fault is not of me." 

" No, Victoria, the lack of food for the dinner 
has nothing to do with it. I do not care to explain, 
but I wish you to go, — to go now." 

The Missionary had seated himself with a book 
during this interview. When the woman had gone 
he looked up and asked, " Then you saw? " 

" How is it possible for a human being to get so 
dirty? That unkempt hair flying long over her 
shoulders, I should think that it would be in all the 
food." 

" It was. That is particularly why I felt that 
none of us could eat another mouthful that she 
cooked." 

"What shall we do?" 

" Luis will attend to the morning coffee." 

" Luis to prepare and Carmen to serve \ You 
know they will not do it. Besides Luis cannot 
manage the midday breakfast nor the dinner. If 
Carmen would, she could prepare food for the chil- 
dren and for me; but she probably will not do it. 



CARMEN 123 

Who is to look after you and the boarding boys ? " 
" Well, you, at least, will not do it, so why worry? 
Perhaps the washwoman may be induced to help out 
until Luis finds you a cook." 

No cook was forthcoming. We worried along 
until I was able to move about a little, then Carmen 
went into the kitchen as cook which left me entirely 
without a nurse girl. Baby Boy fell ill. 

When the child was about a month old, the Mis- 
sionary inquired, " Did you sleep at all last night? " 
Without waiting for a reply he added, " You hire 
the first woman who comes to you today. Take her 
for a nurse girl and keep her at your side. Luis 
can continue to serve table. You see," he added with 
a laugh, " I can't have these babies left on my hands 
out here alone. You must take some thought for 
yourself. I will send Luis to round up someone and 
you engage her." 

A few hours later three children stood in the 
doorway. 

" Luis told us that the Senora needs a nurse girl," 
remarked the middle-sized one indifferently. 

" Yes, but I need a woman, not a child. None of 
you are old enough to bear any responsibility." 

" I have eleven years, and she," pointing to the 
largest of the three girls, " has fourteen years." 
" Neither of you will do. I need a woman." 
The Missionary came into the room at that 
moment and, as he took wailing Baby Boy from my 
arms, said in English, " You need two women, a 
nurse and a doctor. Since you have none of these 
you will hire that largest girl now. It does not mat- 
ter where she has worked or what she knows." Turn- 
ing to the girl, he said, " You are engaged. You 
may go for your box after dinner. You will receive 



124 THE LEAST OF THESE 

one dollar and fifty cents the first month and after 
that two dollars per month if you are satisfactory. 
This is high wages for even a grown woman to earn, 
but you will be expected to keep yourself clean and 
to do quickly whatever the Sefiora tells you. Please 
go now to the kitchen and bring me a glass of water 
for the little Senorita, here. You other girls may 
go home." 

" But you do not know her name, even," I pro- 
tested. 

" Little Daughter will have her drink even if we 
do not know the new servant's name," was his reply. 

When the girl returned I looked at her apprais- 
ingly. An ordinary barrel-shaped figure surmounted 
by a tiny head of which the chin was almost lacking, 
plump brown limbs, fully displayed by a dress that 
barely touched the knees, — there was nothing un- 
usual about her appearance ; nor was there anything 
unusual about the strong odor that surrounded her. 

" Do you think that we can put up with that odor 
in a nurse girl? " I asked the Missionary. 

" Give her some money and send her to bathe her- 
self now." 

" But you know that these women leave at once 
if you but suggest that they bathe." 

" Tell her that you will give her a dime when she 
gets back if she will do it." 

The ten cents worked the trick. She bathed and 
it must have been a process indeed, for she was three 
hours doing it. Looking and smelling like another 
creature she returned to carry out carefully every 
suggestion and request that I made. 

Eldemira was one of the quietest, most inoffensive 
and obedient of the servants I have known. She was 
not one who could arise to great occasions and do 



CARMEN 125 

wonderful things outside of the daily routine, like 
Maria Rodriguez and Elvira. On the contrary there 
was little that she could do. She had received no 
training in anything, it seemed to me, and she was 
very slow; but she could be counted upon to per- 
form the same little duties day after day, once she 
had learned what was expected of her. Apparently 
she had no vices; if she chewed or smoked, like 
Carmen, it was not in my presence and no smell of 
tobacco clung to her clothing; if she drank, I never 
saw any signs of it. She made no struggle against 
keeping herself clean or wearing the white aprons 
with which I provided her. When I made her a new 
dress and suggested that we have it reach to her 
ankles she seemed pleased and quickly assented. Her 
ready acquiescence in everything and her quiet un- 
obtrusiveness were a comfort to me. The six months 
that she was with us were among the most trying 
of my life and Eldemira was of great assistance 
to me. 



XVII 
IN THE COUNTRY 

THE heat continued intense and gaping fissures 
in the face of the baked earth stared reproach- 
fully at the insolent blue sky that refused to 
cover its mocking face with clouds. All nature was 
parched. The city streets lay full of the excrement 
and garbage of many months, while the earth 
awaited its semi-annual bath. 

Baby Boy grew no better and, although I was in 
great need of both, I gained neither strength nor 
flesh. Small Son had suffered from fevers for nearly 
a year and sores which the medical men seemed 
unable to heal had broken out over his body. 

We began seriously to consider getting out of the 
city. One who has not dwelt many days' journey 
from a railroad, in a country where no civilized man 
lives outside of a city or a village, can form any 
conception of what " going to the country " involves 
in South America. 

Several weeks were spent by the Missionary in 
trying to secure a house. We had hoped to go to a 
place higher than the city and so escape some degree 
of the prostrating heat, but it was not possible to 
secure such a place. A friend who owned a ranch 
seven miles from the city offered us the use of his 
house with all the underbrush we needed for fuel for 
cooking, and the milk from a mountain cow, if we 
could catch her and her calf. 

126 



IN THE COUNTRY 127 

The question of servants arose ; if we went to the 
country would anyone go with us? Luis could be 
trusted to remain at the house to see to things, and 
to bring us food from the city, since nothing to eat 
is ever found in the country. The Missionary could 
spend some of the week-days with us, as this was 
"long vacation," — December and January. What 
about Eldemira and Carmen? The former made no 
objection to going, the latter demurred, was afraid 
that she would not like the country. After much 
persuasion she consented to go on condition that I 
pay her three months' wages in advance. I consulted 
the Missionary. 

" I wish it were possible to get along without her," 
he said, " but I do not see how it is to be managed. 
You must rest and Eldemira cannot cook, wash or 
iron. I will see if we cannot find someone else and 
so dismiss her." 

No one else could be secured, so at last we were 
forced to agree to Carmen's demands, with her 
solemn promise given that she would surely stay with 
us during our six weeks in the country and do all 
the work of the house, so that Eldemira might be 
entirely free to look after the three children. 

Two strenuous days of packing followed ; bedding, 
our plainest clothes, oldest table-linen, dishes, pans 
and kettles, food of all sorts, medicines, books and 
two years' magazines, saved up for vacation time if 
it ever came. We were obliged to take everything 
necessary for civilized life in a wilderness, however 
simple we meant that life to be. 

We arrived just before dark. With the Mis- 
sionary and Luis working at the improvised beds and 
the indispensable mosquito-nets, Carmen hanging 
kettles over the three stones that were our stove, 



128 THE LEAST OF THESE 

and I preparing the milk over an alcohol lamp for 
the tired children, I gave no attention to Eldemira. 
When I returned to the cubby-hole, politely called a 
bedroom, where I had left her to watch the children, 
I found that she had made up Baby Boy's bed in 
the clothes basket, arranged his net over it, brought 
out clean garments for all three, and spread out 
everything for the baths quite as though we had been 
in the Oasis. 

A peaceful, restful week followed. There was noth- 
ing to mar our comfort except that the trip had 
been too much for me and I was forced to take to 
my bed, and that the sand flies by thousands fed 
upon us, day and night. 

It was the afternoon of the day before Christmas. 
All housework dragged. The leaves of the giant 
mangoes on every side were motionless, the birds 
were too oppressed by the heat to make a sound, the 
very air hung breathless ; why should I urge my 
women to work? Part of the week's washing shame- 
lessly exposed itself to view on a brush fence, part 
of it lay on stones in the creek-bed, wadded with 
chunks of soft soap, part of it still remained in the 
house, unwet. No cooking of any sort had been done 
for the next day — Christmas. Just before dark 
Carmen came asking that after dinner she might be 
allowed to walk to the city, seven miles distant, to 
attend the Christmas Eve street revelries. 

" Why, no, Carmen, I do not think it wise to give 
you permission. You would not be in condition to 
return for several days and we cannot manage with- 
out you now. The fireworks can be seen from here 
much better than from any point in the city. We 
will have a little tree tomorrow for you girls and the 
children ; Small Son has chosen that tiny orange tree 



IN THE COUNTRY 129 

in front of the house and we will have it decorated 
by seven o'clock in the morning, so that it can be 
lighted by the sun the moment it appears over the 
mountain; that will be prettier than any candles. 
You cannot go. It may mean some sacrifice for you 
but there are recompenses and you see you promised 
to stay. You are having a restful vacation out here 
with no hurry and no ceremony. I cannot give you 
permission." 

Then she had the audacity to ask me for a dollar. 
I reminded her that she was already paid three 
months in advance, with the understanding that she 
was to have no more money during that time. Say- 
ing nothing she went back to the kitchen. 

Eldemira had come to me as destitute as any 
woman I ever had. I had been making her clothing 
and advising her as to the use of her wages when 
she should receive them. That afternoon she asked 
me for a dollar, which was practically all that she 
had as yet earned in my service. 

" What are you going to do with money in this 
wilderness ? " I asked. 

" This night Luis goes towards that city. I send 
by him that he buys me some things for tomorrow." 

" Eldemira, I forbid your giving anything to the 
children tomorrow. You need your money for dozens 
of things and you must not spend it on them." 

" I do not spend that money on them ; would that 
I could ! Of course, I do my will with that money." 

With many misgivings I gave her the dollar. Had 
any suspicion of the truth' crossed my mind I would 
have refused her it. 

After a hurried, makeshift dinner, Carmen de- 
parted for the city. Naturally I could not prevent 
her going. The Missionary had a service in the city 



130 THE LEAST OF THESE 

that evening and did not come out to the ranch until 
the next day. So I passed that night, as I spent 
many succeeding ones, alone in the wilderness, in 
charge of three helpless children, a nine-year-old 
boarder left over from the school, and a young nurse 
girl. 

Carmen never came back. I lost the wages I had 
advanced her, and what was much worse, Eldemira 
never recovered the dollar which Carmen had induced 
the young girl to beg from me to lend to her. The 
woman must have been heartless indeed to have taken 
from so poor a creature as Eldemira. 

Although from time to time Luis brought out a 
woman from the city, none of them ever remained 
long and I did not have a regular housemaid during 
the rest of the time that we were in the country. 



XVIII 
COOKS 

BACK in the city, school in progress, with at 
least two of the children sick all the time, I 
struggled on with a half-dozen cooks the first 
two months. 

There was Delia, whose mother pretended to be a 
respectable woman, claiming to have been married 
to the father of her large family, a man long since 
dead. Delia was a most attractive young woman, 
white of skin, slender of figure, with a wealth of 
bronze black hair, soft and fluffy. The look of her 
told that she was out of place in the servant class. 
In the States such a girl would grace some office, 
or at least a factory, but here practically no avenue 
except that of house-work is open to a girl who must 
earn her own living. 

Delia had long begged to be taken on as cook in 
our home and her mother had wasted many of my 
precious hours in repeated efforts to induce me to 
try her daughter, but the girl was in every way 
unfitted for service in a school for boys and young 
men. We had no separate building for the school, 
nor had we one for the religious services. Every- 
thing was brought into the one rented house where 
we lived. The kitchen, although under the same roof 
with the dining-room was at least eight rods distant 
from it. To pass from one room to the other it was 
necessary to go through two long corridors and two 

131 



132 THE LEAST OF THESE 

courts. The larger of these courts was used as a 
school-room six days of the week and filled by fifty 
or sixty pupils, boys and young men, while on Sun- 
days and evenings it became a church, with seats all 
nicely arranged. Through school and church, the 
work of the household ebbed and flowed, the restless 
tide that never ceases between a kitchen and the rest 
of the house. 

I soon discovered that Delia was too nice for her 
position. She would pertly receive instruction for 
the marketing and trip off, basket on arm. Two 
hours later she would return with very inferior vege- 
tables, some items always lacking, a few cents unac- 
counted for. As I found out at last, she did not go 
to the market at all. She carried the basket as far 
as her mother's home, a block from the Colegio, then 
seated herself to gossip leisurely with her elder sister 
while a twelve-year-old girl was sent to do my mar- 
keting. Likewise did she shirk the dishwashing. The 
little drudge from her mother's came in every day 
and washed up the accumulation in the kitchen while 
Delia mended her flimsy apparel. 

It may be contended that Delia was not in condi- 
tion to carry the heavy marketing, as she had been 
with me only a few days when I discovered that she 
was facing maternity. Yet she was well and strong. 
When I dismissed the girl she disappeared, and it 
was three weeks before any of us saw her. Then she 
reappeared, thinner and whiter than usual, as slim of 
figure as a ten-year-old, and asked if I would receive 
her again in service, adding, " Now, as I am well, I 
can serve the Senora better." 

There was Natividad, tall, slim, lithe, yet not good 
to look upon. Her shifting eyes and artful expres- 
sion left us in doubt as to her entire sanity. 



COOKS 183 

Saturday is the great market day in our city. 
Upon that day, after the morning classes — for we 
have school-sessions six days of the week — the Mis- 
sionary was accustomed to go to market followed by 
Luis, bearing over his arm several large sacks, and 
by the cook, carrying two baskets. All supplies pos- 
sible to be purchased by wholesale were bought for 
the week, Luis carrying home the heavier things and 
the woman bringing the green vegetables and the 
fruit. Often Luis made several trips before all was 
safely stowed in the house. 

The first Saturday that Natividad was with us 
she refused to go to market, although she had made 
no objection to going on the previous days of the 
week. 

" Why do you object to going? " I asked her. 
" You must have expected to do marketing when you 
engaged as cook, and I thought that all of you 
women liked especially to dress up and go to market 
on Saturdays." 

" I do not go those Saturdays," was all the answer 
vouchsafed me. Exasperated, I finally told her that 
she would have to leave if she would not go to 
market on every day except Sunday, and I went back 
to my class. She followed me into the classroom and 
communicated the reason in a whisper ; on Saturdays 
her father was in the market and it would make him 
angry if he saw her there. 

" I do not understand," I returned. 

" It is that my father is a gentleman. To him it 
is a disagreeable sight, that of seeing me carry 
baskets in the plaza. He puts himself very angry 
with me for that." 

" Has he a right to dictate to you? What does 
he do for you? " 



13* THE LEAST OF THESE 

" But nothing. Never in his life does he do any- 
thing for me ; never does he speak to me in the whole 
of my life." 

"Then what does all this nonsense mean? How 
do you know that he is angry with you when he sees 
you in the plaza ? " 

" Before she died my mother taught me that thing. 
That I know well." 

" Are you sure that your father will be in the 
market today? " 

" Of course. Always he is there on those Satur- 
days." 

" Well, you will have to go to market on Satur- 
days if you remain with me and you must go today. 
The Doctor will not care to wait for you either, so 
you will need to hurry." 

She was ready to go when the Missionary came 
from his classes. Once in the market she stared from 
side to side, was not behind the Missionary when he 
turned to deposit some purchase in her basket, and 
finally lost herself entirely in the crowd. A little 
later the Missionary saw her and sent Luis to call 
her. The man returned bringing her in his wake but 
just as they approached, the woman turned suddenly 
and skulked out of sight. The Missionary hired 
another woman to bring home his purchases and on 
his return asked me what ailed the new cook. 

" Is she crazy ? I do not go to the market to play 
hide-and-seek with the cook, and I am thoroughly 
disgusted. It is the woman's business to keep close 
behind me and to be on hand when I need her. I 
have no time to spend in hunting her up." 

I promised that she should behave herself or I 
would secure someone who could do so. When I 
talked to her about it she explained that she was 



COOKS 135 

dodging from side to side to keep out of her father's 
sight. 

" Who is your father ? " 

" Certainly the Senora Mauda does not ask of me 
that? It is not the custom in Colombia to answer 
that question." 

" Well, it does not matter who he is, this nonsense 
must end." 

A few days later she came tearing into the house 
on a run, her basket empty. I happened to be in 
the kitchen when she arrived. 

" Whatever is the meaning of this ? Where is the 
marketing? " I asked. 

" My father ! Me he saw in the plaza and out he 
comes to follow me. By no means can I let him know 
where I am in service, neither, in fact, that I am in 
service. I ran, but fast, and he loses me. I hide 
here in the house." 

" Natividad, this mysterious father of yours has 
upset this household quite long enough. You have 
bought nothing; by the time that you walk sixteen 
blocks to the market and back, and buy the supplies, 
breakfast is two hours late, and you know that we 
cannot allow a meal to be even ten minutes late in 
this school. What are you going to do about 
it?" 

" If that Luis should go now to the plaza I com- 
mence the breakfast even now." 

" If Luis is in the house he will have to go, I sup- 
pose, whatever may be the work at which the Mis- 
sionary has set him. He may do the marketing the 
rest of the week, also, and next week I shall try 
another woman. My patience with you is ex- 
hausted." 

Perhaps I would not have been so ready to dismiss 



136 THE LEAST OF THESE 

her had she been satisfactory in other respects, but 
she was not. Her familiar manner with the older 
boys of the school disgusted those young men and 
the Missionary objected to her passing through a 
room where he was. 

The matter of having meals exactly on time in a 
school is vital. Yet for a month I bothered with a 
pottering old woman, Maria of the Exaltation, who 
would never have a thing even started for the break- 
fast when I came from my classes, an hour before 
serving. It resulted in my preparing each meal, and 
the poor old cook was useful only in washing the 
dishes, which were never well washed. 

Epifania had a mother who was caring for the 
girl's child, a boy of two years. Was it any wonder 
that the girl, while cook at our house, considered it 
legitimate and even a righteous deed to send some- 
thing each meal of the day to her mother and the 
child? Before she despatched the food to the table 
she would dish out a portion into a gourd and hide 
it under her bed, to be delivered into the hands of the 
boy whom the mother sent each day to receive it* 
This was done regularly and the Missionary was not 
quite sure that I was justified in asking Epifania to 
leave because of it. 

There was Maria of the Benediction, a girl of 
fifteen who would have attracted attention anywhere. 
She was a study in black and white, her jet black 
hair forming a striking contrast to her olive-white 
complexion. Delicately curved eyebrows shaded 
great confiding eyes of soft black. Still and sad was 
the expression of the sweet face, prematurely old. 
She possessed an innate refinement entirely lacking 
in most of her predecessors in our household. 

It should be remembered that the mestizos of 



COOKS 137 

Colombia, although spoken of as "Indian," often 
possess far less Indian than Spanish blood. We 
number the negroes of the States by the millions; 
how many are the full-bloods among them? So in 
Latin America, she who has one drop of Indian blood 
is called " mestizo," " peon," " Indian," although the 
other ninety-nine drops be from the highest Spanish 
families. With all the aspirations and longings of 
their generations of white fathers surging in their 
hearts, these girls are condemned to the lives of 
slaves, to work like beasts, to live like animals, with 
no outlook, no hope of better things. Education, 
pretty clothes, innocent pleasures, happy home life, 
— these things are forever denied to them, I care 
not how they struggle for them, how they demand 
them. 

No Indian whatever showed in Maria de la Ben- 
dicion ; she was of a high Spanish type, and appar- 
ently nothing had come down to her from her far- 
away Indian grandmother. She was quiet and 
attentive, but totally untrained in any department of 
work. 

A New Yorker, long past middle age, had found 
his way to Colombia on some business venture. He 
made weekly excursions into near-by villages, but his 
Sundays were spent in our city and he sometimes 
attended our services. One afternoon the Mis- 
sionary remarked: 

" I heard that Benson was in town and sick, so 
hunted him up to find him in a frightful hole; just 
a cot squeezed into a dark little two-roomed tienda, 
with flies and unmentionable insects making his life 
unbearable. He is very sick from a sort of blood 
poison, caused by the bites of sand flies; he has no 
care and nothing decent that he can eat. The man 



138 THE LEAST OF THESE 

will die if he stays there, and yet I do not see what 
we can do about it." 

" Of course, I know what you would like to do 
about it," I responded. " If we were to bring him 
here, where could we put him? We are ready to 
overflow as it is." 

" I do not know where we could put him. There 
is no place and both of us have far too much to do 
now." 

" The man is an American, and sick, out here 
thirty days from New York, his home. We must do 
something for him." 

" It looks that way. We cannot let almost the 
only American we have ever seen here die in such a 
place." 

" If you will see that Luis is at my disposal 
tomorrow when I finish classes you may arrange to 
bring Mr. Benson here tomorrow before dinner." 

There was no unoccupied room in the house. The 
Missionary, the three children and I slept in the 
corridor of a tiny court, in a row of white mosquito- 
netted beds. There was still a small parlor and a 
long " office " left us. Luis and I moved the con- 
tents of the parlor into the crowded office, and, in 
the room thus vacated, fixed up the best pretense 
of a bedroom possible with the materials at hand. 
Night found Mr. Benson occupying the room. 

Truly the man was very ill, but not so ill that he 
could not make everyone around him most uncom- 
fortable. It was no one's special duty to wait upon 
him and after two or three trials each, none of the 
servants except Maria de la Bendicion would do it. 
Yet she was especially sensitive. Having with my 
help hopefully prepared something that we thought 
the sick man might eat she would carry it to his 



COOKS 139 

room, only to emerge a few minutes later, sobbing 
convulsively, as she fled to the kitchen. While she 
never refused to go to Mr. Benson's room, as did 
Luis and Eldemira, yet each visit caused her such 
suffering, that I did not send her. Eventually the 
entire care of the sick man fell upon the Missionary 
and me. He underwent two minor operations in our 
home and five months later returned to New York 
as well as ever. 

Maria became less and less able to do her work. 
The white piteousness of her delicate face smote my 
heart. A mere child, endowed by her Maker with 
great beauty and a sensitive soul, yet facing woman's 
greatest ordeal with no one in the whole world to 
care what became of her or her offspring, no one 
to raise a hand to help her, no home, no money, not 
even a State Institution to which to turn. 

At last she came to me in despair, tragedy written 
on her lovely face, as she said : 

" Senora Mauda, there is not to me the strength 
to work here more. I must go." 

" Where do you go, Maria ? " and my voice was 
gentle, for a great sympathy for her stirred my 
heart. 

" It is in the country that I have a sister who 
works on a ranch. To her I go. Perhaps I stay 
there." 

" But what can you do ? " 

" Certainly I work in the coffee-field, but it is bet- 
ter that I go." 

" I suppose it is," I replied reluctantly. I thought 
of the life of a woman on a ranch; work of the 
heaviest kind, commencing hours before daylight and 
enduring until long after dark, one meal in each 
twenty-four hours, and a meagre one at that, with 



140 THE LEAST OF THESE 

guapo, guapo, all hours of the day. At night the 
privilege of lying on the chill earth floor of a vermin- 
infected hut, without bedding of any sort. Whose 
was the fault that this frail young girl was con- 
demned to such a life at such a time? And the child 
to come; to what was it coming? Something is 
radically wrong with a land where more than half 
the inhabitants are born to such lives. 

Is it to be wondered at that these girls some- 
times commit terrible crimes, even the killing of their 
own children, born or unborn? Like Topsy, spring- 
ing from nowhere in particular, " just growed," with 
no teaching, no precedent, no standard, no legal way 
to realize motherhood, no possibility of avoiding their 
fate, since they are the prey of all men of whatever 
class — men who will accomplish their purpose by 
any means, bribery, violence, drugs, — not one in one 
hundred of these poor girls escapes. And yet we 
cannot look upon them as bad. Condemn not the 
girl-mothers ; God Himself can have only loving pity 
for them. 



XIX 

TWO MARIAS 

ONE afternoon two estimable-looking middle- 
aged women came to see me. The younger 
of the two offered me the elder as cook, 
remarking that Maria Jesus was a friend of hers 
and a capable woman. I seized upon the proffered 
woman with avidity. Would she come at once? 
Would she prepare dinner now? 

" Oh, no, most certainly no," her spokesman said. 
" Such is not custom here. Maria Jesus is a self- 
respecting woman. She needs time in order to con- 
sider that thing. She needs time to take a bath and 
to wash her clothes. In two more days she comes." 

" Will you, Maria Jesus ? Will you come in two 
days?" 

" It is certain, Senora. In those two days I 
come." 

She came and she remained. That was three years 
ago, and today she may be found in our kitchen, pre- 
paring the dinner. 

She told me that somewhere in Colombia she had 
three grown sons and a young daughter from whom 
she had not heard for years. During the first year 
that she was with us, she traced the daughter and 
brought her from the town where she found her to 
our city. A bright, pretty girl she proved to be, 
and we easily placed her in a good family as nurse 
girl. 

141 



U2 THE LEAST OF THESE 

Do not believe that we have always sailed on 
smooth seas with Maria Jestis, who, as do all self- 
respecting women here, worships the god, custom. 
" It is the custom " is final ; any mistress who 
chooses to beat herself against that Gibraltar but 
destroys herself, — she does not change the custom 
one whit. Maria Jesus will forever do things as she 
has always done them ; but she is fairly neat, frugal 
and knows how to cook Colombian food. She is gar- 
rulous and fussy, yet always respectful. 

Hers is a good business head. 

" If my Senora thinks in paying to me a little 
more I grind that chocolate in the house." 

How could I, with but three servants, ever have 
dreamed of having the chocolate bean prepared for 
cocoa at home, as is done in all " good houses " 
where from six to twelve servants are kept to wait 
upon one family? Astute old Maria knows that by 
paying her fifty cents more per month I am saving 
myself full a third of the cost of the cocoa, of which 
our family, chiefly the Colombian element of it, uses 
ten pounds each month. 

The chocolate beans, large, brown, kidney-shaped, 
are purchased in the plaza by the pound. While 
they are being roasted in a flat pan over the coals, 
one person is kept constantly stirring them. Two 
coats has each bean; the first, tough and tenacious, 
the second, soft and elusive like the inner skin of the 
peanut. Both of these must be removed, laboriously. 
One-half day of hard work is required for reducing 
the beans to a soft sticky pulp by grinding them 
between two stones. With this paste is mixed warm 
soft dark sugar, half and half. A thorough, tire- 
some kneading of the whole mass, then several hours 
spent in rolling little wads of the paste between the 



TWO MARfAS 14S 

palms of the hands, and a day's labor is rewarded by 
the satisfying sight of a table covered with smooth 
brown chocolate walnuts, neatly arranged in rows. 
One of these soft balls is dropped into a cup of 
water, brought to a boil, beaten up with a little stick 
which is twirled dexterously between the fingers of 
both hands, and behold! — the Colombian's favorite 
drink, a foaming, oily, sweet chocolate, highly spiced 
with cinnamon. 

Ours is a city without water ; obviously no wash- 
ing can be done in the houses. In some parts of the 
world no advance has been made in the profession 
of washwoman since Eve took the clothes of Cain 
and Abel to the river for cleansing. 

Most Colombian washwomen have weather-beaten 
faces, shrewd and kindly. The forced contact with 
sun, wind and water produces in them a cheerfulness 
and a wholesomeness lacking in many cargo-carriers, 
from whose faces the life of a beast of burden often 
wipes every trace of intelligence. The washwoman 
is not lethargic; she is possessed of a humorous 
philosophy that keeps her alive under the bite and 
blister of intolerable conditions. 

Maria de la Cruz, typical of her class, is yet 
slightly less robust and rather more intelligent than 
many. She treasures a child, the idol of her heart, 
a pretty, stolid, rosy-cheeked little girl who " has 
six years." 

Long before the regular six-o'clock appearance of 
the sun, Maria of the Cross takes in her hand a 
small basket containing a meagre lunch and many 
long slim bars of a soap so soft it is difficult for it 
to keep its shape. Two of us assist the woman to 
lift to her back a ponderous bundle made up of a 
week's washing for our large household. This is 



1M THE LEAST OF THESE 

secured to her shoulders and head by a harness, ropes 
binding her chest, a broad band pressing her fore- 
head. Tugging, heaving, struggling, her back 
almost horizontal with the earth, she plods to a creek 
a mile distant for her day's work. 

Why start before daylight? The streams that are 
used as the city's wash-tubs are divided on both sides 
into sections called " pilas." A pila includes some 
ten or twelve feet of the river bank, all the water that 
flows by that point, and the ground extending back 
from the river. Five cents per day is paid for the 
rent of a pila. The women who arrive earliest at 
the stream may choose the pilas highest up and so 
find the water comparatively clean and clear. The 
women who come later are obliged to wash lower down 
with water that the other women have already 
frothed with soap and dirt. Since quarantine is 
unheard of, leprosy and worse diseases stalking in 
hideous forms through the streets and lurking in the 
foul hovels, infection from the water in which all the 
world washes her clothes is common. Thus it be- 
hooves us to despatch our washwoman early that she 
may secure a pila high up the stream. 

Each article is wet, smeared with soap, bunched 
into a wad, and thrown upon the ground to soak. 
The bleaching sun streams down upon it, the woman 
occasionally takes it up, rewets it, resoaps it and 
plumps it down again. One by one each article takes 
its turn on a flat stone at the vigorous slapping and 
pounding, kneading and rolling, which is supposed 
to assist the sun and soap in extracting the dirt. All 
day long under the blazing sun the washwoman 
stands knee-deep in the cold water of the mountain 
stream and toils, ever on the alert that a handker- 
chief or a child's sock does not float away on the 



TWO MARfAS 145 

current. She soaps and souses, she pounds and pom- 
mels, she rinses and wrings, until at dark -she strains 
slowly home under the crushing weight of the clothes 
— wet! She stumbles blindly into our doorway and 
drops her load upon the nearest bench, half squatting 
in front of it while we unbind her harness. 

'Tis the way the burden-bearers rest. Through 
all the streets and trails may be seen logs or stones 
set up for this very purpose, that the weight of the 
cargo may be sustained while the exhausted bearer 
sinks gasping against it, runs her fingers under the 
band cutting into her forehead, mops at the sweat 
dripping from her face, eases the binding of the ropes 
on her chest. Were she to drop the burden on the 
ground she would be unable to lift it again to her 
shoulders or to adjust it alone. 

What does Maria de la Cruz receive for fourteen 
hours of such work? I pay her fifteen or twenty 
cents, but she requires not less than seventy or eighty 
cents' worth of soap for each washing. And the 
clothes, are they clean? Wonderfully clean and 
beautifully white, it matters not of what color they 
were when they left the house, pink, blue, yellow — 
they all return white, at least in streaks and spots. 
Here is one explanation of the fact that the most 
of the people of our city wear white ; it is more satis- 
factory to start one's things out white in the first 
place for no color can resist the sun and soap of 
Colombia. 



XX 

LUIS LEAVES OUR SERVICE 

IT was while we were in the country that Luis 
began to lose his hold. Many of the sheets and 
most of the towels that were sent to the wash 
the first few weeks after Baby Boy came were never 
found. We felt that their loss was to be attributed 
to Carmen or her numerous relatives. So the day 
after Christmas the Missionary made the trip to the 
city on foot to securely lock all the front part of 
the house, leaving Luis access only to the kitchen and 
the solar. In vain did we explain to the man that 
this was done on Carmen's account who, on plea that 
she had some things in the house, might enter during 
his absence. He preferred to believe that we were 
doubtful of his honesty. This idea would never have 
entered his head had he been the same Luis with whom 
we had often entrusted what must have seemed to 
him large sums of money. B'ut he had been drinking 
since Elvira left us, and during the weeks that he 
was much of the time alone in the house he took some 
of his meals at a tienda where he received guapo with 
his food. This naturally increased his thirst. 

Only semi-weekly did he bring the marketing to the 
country. On one of these occasions he arrived drunk, 
— loudly drunk. He rattled off terrible language to 
me and leered at me wildly when I ordered him away. 
I hastily put the three children into the tiny hot 
bedroom, and shut and locked the door, although 

146 



LUIS LEAVES OUR SERVICE 147 

this left us in complete darkness, stifling darkness, 
as there was no window. The house had three small 
rooms Opening in a row upon a long poreh. Up 
and down this porch tore the drunken man, raving 
wildly. I was mortally afraid of him, and but for 
the children I was alone. Eldemira was washing at 
the creek and Julio, the boarder, was with her. 

Not until the man had at last fallen upon the 
porch floor in a drunken stupor did I venture out. 
He lay there all night. Before dawn the next morn- 
ing he arose, stealthily gathered the fagots for the 
three stones that served as a stove, and slipped away 
without speaking to any of us. Poor Luis ! To so 
disgrace himself with the family he loved ! 

Almost never after that night did I see Luis 
entirely sober. Again and again we dismissed him, 
but he did not go far away, and always appeared 
to help out in times of stress. Then he would stay 
on until we became afraid of him or until we found 
him pilfering to get money for his liquor when we 
would again tell him to leave. Although he always 
took his dismissal quietly, we could see that it was 
a blow to him. 

We were in one of our frequent throes of moving, 
the disaster that has so beset us in this city. Luis 
had appeared from somewhere to help. All the 
world knows that moving is not easy at best. It is 
an agony when everything must be carried upon 
men's backs, lashed on so that the little things may 
not fall off and be lost, tied securely that the whole 
cargo may not fall apart and topple to the ground. 
Large, heavy articles are carried on a platform 
borne on the shoulders of two or more men. Since 
both the loading and the unloading must be care- 
fully watched that nothing be stolen, every pair of 



148 THE LEAST OF THESE 

honest hands and eyes are welcome at such a time 
as this. 

The first and the second day of the moving passed 
without any worse accidents than were to be ex- 
pected. The third day Luis grew more and more 
excited until I asked the Missionary if the man were 
entirely responsible. 

" I fear that he is not," was the reply, " but what 
can I do? It breaks my heart to turn the poor fel- 
low off again." 

An hour later a scream from Maria Jesus brought 
everyone on a run to the kitchen. Before we could 
reach it pandemonium broke loose, a pounding, yell- 
ing, wailing, that froze our blood with horror. We 
had reason to be frightened. Luis had turned sud- 
denly from his work and seized upon Small Son, the 
person in the whole world whom he most loved, and 
had attempted to kill him. A boarding boy, just a 
stripling, had knocked the child from the maniac's 
hands, thrown Son into an adjoining room and pre- 
cipitated himself after him. Managing to close the 
door, he locked it before Luis could turn around and 
grasp the significance of what had happened. Mad- 
dened, the servant was trying to beat down the door 
to reach the boys. 

Everyone was screaming, but no one dared do any- 
thing. When the Missionary arrived on the scene 
he walked straight to Luis, a man much larger 
and more vigorous than himself, laid his hand upon 
the man's shoulder and said firmly, " Luis, leave the 
house." 

Step by step, in some miraculous fashion, he slowly 
forced the deranged creature through the great 
court, down the long corridor and into the street. 
Not once did he remove his hand from the man's 



LUIS LEAVES OUR SERVICE 149 

shoulder, not once did Luis pause in his ravings. 
The street reached, the Missionary pushed shut the 
heavily-spiked, plank door, and slipped into place 
the long iron bar that secured it. Then he turned 
to us a face as white as chalk, as he said, " Go to 
your work, men. Eldemira, bring my son to me in 
the office." 

For more than an hour Luis raved wildly and beat 
his hands against the immovable door until it was 
stained with blood from the lacerated knuckles. 
Finally several policemen appeared and dragged the 
frantic man to jail. The next day the Missionary 
looked him up and secured him a position with a 
painter. 

What was the past of that taciturn man, so violent 
at times, yet with so loving a heart? Had he been 
a murderer? 

His future is easy to read; unless he gives up 
drinking, a thing most difficult to do in a liquor- 
soaked, besotted land, he will be killed in some 
drunken debauch. 

Why make mention of the incompetent, irrespon- 
sible men who followed Luis? Men who allowed the 
cow to lose herself, and the donkey to run away, who 
could not be trusted to sweep, mop and spread lime 
each morning in the bedroom of our domestic ani- 
mals, who insisted upon sweeping the courts and the 
street in front of the house on Sundays, who paid 
far more than they should have paid for forage that 
was poor and marketing that was bad, who forgot to 
bring the bread, who let the plants burn up and the 
bath run dry. 

To have borne a child makes all classes of women 
akin. Each morning after my own little son's bottles 
and milk had been attended to, with equal care I fol- 



150 THE LEAST OF THESE 

lowed the formulas for mixing sterilized milk and 
boiled water for the large bottles presented me by 
the wretched child-mothers who, clasping their 
skinny babies to their unclean breasts, squatted in 
our zaguan. Each morning I took the dirty nursing 
bottles from the grimy hands of these girls and 
tried to teach the poor creatures how to cleanse the 
bottles and the nipples. 

One among this pitiable group offered to enter our 
house to care for the donkey and the cow until we 
could secure a good man. For a few weeks Dolores 
made a supreme effort. Without a single inherited 
or acquired instinct of cleanliness, the poor woman 
found our requirements difficult; that she should 
bathe her wailing infant was an imposition, that she 
should keep it wrapped in a clean garment, an indig- 
nity ; " so much of work, my Senora." If a woman 
can see no necessity for keeping herself or her child 
clean, what may be said of the condition of the bed- 
room of the cow under her ministrations? Dolores 
was incapable of coming up to the standard we set 
for her, and when I persisted in requiring that she 
should care for her son properly, since I could not 
endure his piteous constant wail, she left in high 
dudgeon. 

I do not say that Dolores was exceptional; she, 
like the rest of us, was individual, hardly typical. 
We have not found Colombian servants lacking in a 
desire to improve their condition or in gratitude to 
him who attempts to help in such improvement. 

At last we secured Benito, a miniature man who 
stands scarcely higher than the donkey. Benito's 
name lacks but one letter of being beautiful, — bonito 
— but how great must be the importance of that 
letter ! It js amusing to see him hopping about the 



LUIS LEAVES OUR SERVICE 151 

donkey, who is more obstinate on occasions than any 
mule, in a futile effort to induce the beast to obey 
his orders. In size and intelligence two Benitos 
might be made from one Luis. Such an insignificant 
figure does not lend dignity to the Missionary's 
establishment, but so long as the donkey does not 
step on him, we shall probably keep Benito. He is 
strenuously doing his little best. 



XXI 

ELDEMIRA 

ONE day as I was dismissing my last class of 
the morning, Eldemira announced: 
" Senora, there is a policeman among 
those who wait to see you." 

I give the classes with the children playing on a 
mat at my side or in the court within my line of 
vision. They form quite enough interruption to 
class-work without one of the servants running 
in every few moments to say, " The Senora leaves* 
me no sugar ; all is locked up," or, " I forgot it 
myself to buy extra milk; I need that at once. I 
must have more money." There is a penalty, slightly 
less than the death penalty, hanging over anyone 
who disturbs me when I am in class. Even callers 
must wait; everything and everybody waits, and it 
all piles up until the class is dismissed when it 
descends at once in an avalanche upon my head. 

" What does the policeman want? " I asked 
Eldemira. 

" Who knows ? " shrugging her shoulders. " There 
he is." 

Even as the Bible attended to matters of the law 
before it gave attention to love and charity, so 
friends and beggars waited while I addressed myself 
to the officer of the law, standing at attention on 
our threshold. 

" In the Sefiora's honorable household is there a 
girl named Eldemira?" he asked. 

152 




1 



Cd 



ELDEMIRA 153 

" Yes, Senor," I replied. 

" She is to go with me. Here is the paper." And 
he thrust out a warrant for Eldemira's arrest. 

" But she is only a young girl and I cannot let her 
go alone to the police-station. Of course you have 
no idea for what she is needed ? " 

" But certainly no, honorable Sefiora." 

" Strange that these warrants never state for what 
one is arrested. Since I suppose that she must go, 
I shall go with her." 

Having called Maria from her duties in the 
kitchen to watch the babies, Eldemira and I set 
off, she tagging the policeman and I bringing up the 
rear. Our peculiar wireless telephone was in excel- 
lent working order on this occasion. Long before 
we reached the police station I discerned the chief 
of police standing at the door, bareheaded. As I 
commenced to climb the steps, he hastily descended 
and, hat in one hand, gracefully offered the other 
hand to escort me up the steps. However he would 
not let me enter the building. 

" This is no place for the illustrious Sefiora," he 
said. " If the honorable Sefiora does not wish to 
leave her servant here alone, the girl may return with 
her to her home. I shall do myself the honor to call 
upon the Doctor Reverend and explain the matter." 

I despatched Eldemira to the house at once. Since 
I was down town I thought that I would buy a spool 
of thread I needed, so proceeded towards a shop, 
when almost immediately I met the Missionary. For 
once, and I believe for the only time in my life, I 
found him excited. Words poured so rapidly from 
this quiet man's mouth that I could say nothing. 

Eight gentlemen, all of them from the best families 
in the city, had that day interviewed him, all with 



154 THE LEAST OF THESE 

the same complaint; Eldemira had contaminated 
their sons — twelve young boys in all 

" Eldemira ! " I exclaimed. " It is not possible ! 
The girl is never in the streets at night. She never 
asks permission to go out of the house and she has 
had no hours off for weeks because the children are 
always sick. I know it is not she. It couldn't be; 
there is some mistake." 

" These gentlemen would not make an accusation 
that they could not prove. I do not understand it 
any better than you do, but there must be some 
explanation." 

" There is, and it is that they are mistaken in the 
woman. Too, Eldemira is so young, it is impossible 
to credit the story." 

" We shall see. However, I have just left word 
at the medico's office that he come at once and 
examine the girl and the three children. Think to N 
what we have exposed those babies, with such a nurse 
girl! The thought drives me mad," and he shud- 
dered. 

The doctor pronounced the children sound as yet, 
but he would repeat the examination later. The girl 
was in bad condition. When he informed us of this, 
Eldemira flew into a passion, declared that he lied, 
that it was all a conspiracy to drive her from the 
only home she had ever known, to prejudice against 
her the only friends she had ever had. 

" I shall still be your friend, Eldemira. Never 
can I forget the nights that we have hung over Baby 
Boy's cradle, or how patient you have been with 
Little Daughter. The medico says that he can cure 
you in a few months' time ; if you will go somewhere 
to stay I will pay your board and buy your remedies 
until you are well, then you may return to me." 



ELDEMIRA 155 

"But nothing ails me, Senora Mauda. You 
are no friend of mine if you believe the medico's 
lies." 

In a terrible rage she packed her box with the 
clothes that I had made her and hastily departed. 

Little by little we learned the whole wretched 
business. Eldemira had never known a mother's 
care — nor in fact the love and care of anyone. The 
old hag who raised her had begun to hire her out 
before she was ten years of age. The poor child 
had never known any other life, had never been 
taught anything until she came to us. With us she 
had learned much, but not enough ; she had not taken 
to herself the strength of Christ to help her in 
reforming. 

Each morning when she carried Baby Boy in her 
arms, with Little Daughter clinging to her skirts, 
she had not gone to the park, as I had supposed, but 
to the houses in the worst part of the city, where 
she had left the babies in the arms of diseased 
wretches while she met the boys who ran away from 
the Jesuit school. While I gave classes at home and 
waited upon Small Son, always in bed, sick of fevers, 
comforting myself with the thought that the two 
little ones, at least, were breathing fresher air and 
rejoicing in the shade of the mango trees, they were, 
in reality, in the most polluted air, being caressed 
and kissed by the foulest creatures under God's fair 
sky. Their escape from contamination was due to 
nothing less than a miracle and we so recog- 
nized it. 

" This is what our practicing economy has led us 
into," remarked the Missionary. " In no other house 
in the city is the nurse girl allowed to go out alone 
with the children. Always from two to three serv- 



156 THE LEAST OF THESE 

ants are sent along so that each can watch the 
others. From now on, we hire two women, not one. 
A woman is needed to help Maria Jesus in the 
kitchen, to do the ironing and the sewing that are 
taking the last ounce of strength out of you. Why, 
any seamstress would consider it one woman's con- 
stant work to keep this family in clothes where noth- 
ing can be bought ready-made. But in addition to 
all the sewing you teach most of the day, iron, count 
beans, bananas and what not, keep accounts, inter- 
view beggars and stay up all night with the chil- 
dren. You must get two women, and when the babies 
are taken to the park, send Maria Jestis with them, 
if Small Son is too ill to go along to watch them." I 
never saw Eldemira again. In less than a year she was 
dead. Tossed on the limitless sea of passion, buffeted 
by gales of suffering, struggling in the cruel waters of 
indifference, this human wreck, scarcely out of child- 
hood, sank rapidly. Friendless and homeless and 
dying, she blindly groped her way to the " hospital " 
which flanks the city cemetery, was admitted and al- 
lowed to lie upon the dirty, ragged, brick floor with 
no cot, no mattress, supplied her. That night, left 
alone in torture of body and agony of mind, the poor 
girl slipped away from the world that had been so 
unkind, and another soul stood for judgment in the 
presence of its Maker. Of that judgment, none can 
guess; only God knows. But I seem to hear words 
echoing through the ages, " Inasmuch as ye did it 
not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." 
Who shall say whose was the soul weighed in the bal- 
ance when Eldemira faced her God? The child never 
had a chance. 

Maria Jesus heard that Eldemira had gone to 
" hospital," and she went early in the day to see if 



ELDEMIRA 157 

there were anything she could do to help the girl. 
As the cook entered the building, a woman, known as 
a " nurse," who was passing through the corridor, 
accosted her. 

"Are you a relative? " pointing to the dead body 
on the floor. 

" No, I am only any neighbor's child " (just any- 
body who happens along). 

" Then what were you to her ? " 

" Once she was employed in the house where I am 
cook and I liked her much." 

" How does it seem to you, they tell me she leaves 
many pretty things, footwear, dresses ; is it not so? " 

" Who knows ? " was the non-committal reply. 

"She had relatives?" 

"Who knows?" 

" But where are these things of hers ? " 

" I know nothing." Maria Jesus was alert. She 
would not assist this woman, who had rendered no 
single service to Eldemira, to come into possession 
of the few things the girl had left. 

While our cook stood there, two men entered car- 
rying two long poles held in parallel position by 
means of short cross-bars. Laying the poles upon 
the floor, they carelessly dragged the inanimate body 
upon the rude bier, lifted it, and trotted rapidly over 
the few feet of ground that intervened between the 
spot where the body had lain and a row of shallow 
graves, always kept dug, awaiting occupancy. Ar- 
rived at the grave, the men lifted one side of the 
bier and rolled the corpse into the opening. Thud! 
— it fell into the grave and the men, stopping not 
to straighten the body, commenced to shovel earth 
over it. Earth that was replete with fragments of 
human bodies, bones, skulls, for this ground is re- 



158 THE LEAST OF THESE 

peatedly dug for new graves. The opening filled, the 
men returned to the house for another corpse. 

After this fashion they die and are buried. Such 
burials are not made necessary by the stress of war, 
where the many are mowed down and must be cov- 
ered in ditches; they are every-day affairs. The 
horror is not that of a passing day, the unthinkable 
tragedy of a few years of war; it is a continuous 
horror, unbroken, undiminished, the same through- 
out generations, throughout centuries. 



XXII 
ELVIRA 

EVENTUALLY Benigna and Jova were intro- 
duced into the family. Forever displaying 
a fine row of white teeth, dark, squat little 
Benigna was well named " benign." She was the most 
orderly being I have ever dwelt with. She could get 
up at any hour of the darkest night and at once 
lay her hand upon the thing needed at the moment. 
Never a pin nor a button was found out of place 
while Benigna fussejl around our things. 

Jova was decidedly pretty, with rosy cheeks; a 
buxom lass who could do the heaviest washing, carry 
it wet on the head and back, and never lose her color 
or her spirits. They were two of the most normal 
girls I have known in Colombia; full of life, ready 
for fun and romance. What a terrible pity that 
neither fun nor romance can legitimately enter into 
the life of servant girls here! No amusement of 
any sort is provided for them other than that of 
the saloon and the street revelry. All the innocent 
little pleasures possible to young people in the States 
are denied these young girls. Homes and family life 
are forever beyond their reach, yet many of them 
have the nicest instincts of homekeeping and of the 
care of children. 

During the interval between the departure of 
Eldemira and the coming of Benigna I had several 
women for short periods each. Among them was 

159 



160 THE LEAST OF THESE 

Socorro, my former cook. Luis knew of Eldemira's 
going — as who did not? Our telephone system with 
no metallic instruments is most perfect, — and he 
came to inform us that Socorro would be very glad 
to come back to us but that she was ashamed to 
offer herself. I sent him to say to her that I should 
be happy to see her again in my house if she would 
promise not to repeat her offense. Socorro was not 
a bad woman, she was merely weak, and too good- 
natured. 

She proved motherly — naturally, with ten children 
to her credit! — but ignorant of the first principles 
of caring for a child. She was eager to please and 
not garrulous, but was most inattentive. The chil- 
dren might have stood on their heads in a row, or 
have taken to the air and have flown away, and she 
never would have noticed it or have thought there was 
anything strange in it if she had noticed. She was 
decidedly too indulgent to the " Little White Angel." 
Anything the child wanted she immediately had, if 
Socorro were near. I often thought pityingly of 
those ten and wondered how they lived through it ! 

One night as we finished tucking the three chil- 
dren, fresh and sweet from their baths, into their 
little white beds and were carefully securing each 
mosquito net, Socorro told me that she was soon 
leaving our house. 

" But my dear woman, what is the matter? Are 
you not content here ? " 

" That woman in the kitchen ! That Maria Jesus ! 
But who can live in the same house with her? " 

" Oh, never mind Maria Jesus ! We do not pay 
any attention to her fault-finding; it is just her 
way. She is a good woman, a good servant and I 
place great confidence in her." 



ELVIRA 161 

" It is not that I am alone in that. Certainly 
they are many who leave my Senora for that woman's 
tongue. Is it not the truth ? " 

" That has nothing to do with the matter, Socorro. 
If the young girls that I have tried do quarrel with 
the cook, you should show more sense. You are a 
woman of experience and should have patience. You 
are foolish if you leave a good place where you have 
plenty to eat, clean clothes to wear and kind treat- 
ment, because of anything that Maria Jesus can say. 
Her sputterings amount to nothing; she grumbles 
at the Doctor and me, too, but we only laugh at 
her." 

" That, yes, is certainly different." 

" Well, Socorro, you are not as sensible as I took 
you to be if you desert me now on account of Maria 
Jesus." 

The next night, with many blushings and hesita- 
tions, the woman confessed to me that Maria Jesus 
was not the cause of her leaving. 

" I thought it strange," I replied. " You are too 
good-natured and meek-tempered yourself to quarrel 
with anyone. What, then, is the cause? " 

She confided with whispers, nods and giggles that 
a certain barefooted butcher, much given to drink 
(not that she mentioned bare feet and liquor; I 
learned of these facts later), wished to set her up 
in a little hut of her own. 

" Oh, Socorro," I gasped. "At your age! With 
a grown daughter in this very city and seven other 
living children somewhere on earth, not to mention 
the two in heaven ! Woman, what can you be think- 
ing of? " 

Socorro's nature ever showed itself as April 
weather; a dash of rain could be expected at any 



162 THE LEAST OF THESE 

time between the floods of sunshine. Now the tears 
vanquished the smiles and poured themselves copi- 
ously over the little white beds of the children. 

" Oh, Senora, it is just that. Those children of 
mine, I miss them so ! I want another little baby in 
my arms. I leave tomorrow, Senora." 

On the morrow she departed, as radiant and happy 
as any bride ought to be! 

It had been nearly a year since Elvira left us 
after her last fight with Luis. At first she frequently 
returned to visit me. When Baby Boy came she 
hurried in, dressed in her starchiest, to congratulate 
me and to " know the new baby." On that occasion 
she wore a thin gold chain from which was sus- 
pended a jeweled cross. Although neither of us 
mentioned the chain it loomed like a black wall 
between us. I felt its presence every moment and I 
knew that she was quite as conscious of it as I. 
Because of it neither of us could speak naturally, 
and I am sure that she was as glad as I when her 
short call terminated. 

That night I spoke of it to the Missionary. " Do 
you suppose it is Lozano ? " I asked. 

Lozano was a fine young man, just approaching 
his majority, the son of a jeweler in the city. He 
was one of our most trusted boys. 

" I do not think so ; yet you never can tell," the 
Missionary responded. " He never looked at her 
when he saw her here in the school every day. I 
think it is a gentleman from the coast, a salesman 
who has been in the city for a few weeks. I have 
seen him speaking with Elvira in the street." 

"Does he sell jewelry? That exquisite chain is 
such an unusual gift." 

" I do not know. Don't worry about it for who- 



ELVIRA 163 

ever it is we cannot help it. Did the girl say whether 
she is still in service or is she in an establishment 
of her own ? " 

" She is still ironing at the Gomez home where she 
went when she left here. Anyone who has Elvira 
for an ironing-woman is fortunate." 

I did not see her again for many months although 
I heard of her from time to time. Twice the Mis- 
sionary remarked that he had caught her skulking 
down a side-street to avoid meeting him. 

One sultry afternoon I sat at the sewing-machine, 
trying frantically to finish some garment. The 
room where I sewed was also used as a closet and 
store-room. Along the four sides it was lined with 
trunks and boxes each set high upon an empty box 
to keep the contents as far as possible from the 
floor, with its molding dampness and cockroaches. 
Through the center of the large room, so that it 
touched neither wall, extended an enormous rack 
filled with dozens of hooks from which was suspended 
all the clothing possessed by the family. In this 
climate it is impossible to keep from destruction any 
garment hung against a wall or in the dark. 

In spite of its size and the open door into the 
court, the room was stuffy, dark and hot. I had 
opened the heavy inner blinds of the one window and 
placed the two babies in the deep window-seat where 
they were amusing themselves playing with the 
bowed-out iron bars of the window, and in watching 
the constant string of donkeys that filed past. 

I saw Elvira approaching, long before she caught 
sight of us. When she attempted to pass without 
greeting us, I called to her. 

" How do you do, Elvira? How are you? " 

She could do no less than pause to return the 



164 THE LEAST OF THESE 

greeting. How had the mighty fallen! This girl, 
who a year ago was so punctilious in the care and 
adornment of her person as to call out Luis' wrath, 
wore a flimsy skirt frayed at the edges, in tatters over 
the hips, soiled throughout its extent. Her worn- 
out basque was unable to withstand her protruding 
figure, which had burst the cloth and hung out in 
several places. Her skin was grimy and her hair 
unkempt. Upon her head she carried a small wad 
of dirty clothes. 

It was with a very subdued air that she responded 
to my inquiries about her little daughter, some three 
weeks old. 

" How does it seem to my Senora Mauda, she is 
very ill. Soon she leaves me." 

" Leaves you? Why, Elvira, what ails her? You 
are a well, strong woman. Your daughter ought to 
be healthy." 

" It is that milk ; but certainly it causes a terrible 
diarrhoea." 

" What milk ? You surely have not given her milk 
from the plaza? " 

" It certainly is the truth. I put that little girl 
of mine on the bottle." 

" Oh, Elvira, you know it will kill her ! Why did 
you do it ? " 

" Senora Mauda gives the bottle to her babies ; 
of course I do it also." 

" Oh, you women drive me to desperation ! Why 
can't you use common sense? You know that I give 
the bottle to our babies because there is absolutely 
nothing else to be done. Repeatedly have you heard 
my objections to the diseased, guzzling wet-nurses 
that so beset me with offers to care for my children. 
You also know what a cross it is to us to have to raise 



ELVIRA 165 

these youngsters on a bottle. We had to buy a cow, 
then rent one when ours was dry ; we had to hire an 
extra servant, chiefly on account of the cow; the 
Doctor and I wash bottles, sterilize and boil and 
pasteurize milk by the hour. You remember we* 
never let anyone, we never let even you, touch the 
baby's milk or bottles. Do you think that we 
would put ourselves to all this extra trouble and 
expense if it could be avoided? But you, you are a 
strong plump woman, young, too. You could raise 
up your daughter to be a fine big girl and healthy if 
you would not let her eat everything that she could 
lay her hands on, and if you would keep her clean. 
But of course you will lose her if you give her that 
stuff from the plaza. I am ashamed of you, Elvira." 
" Perhaps it may be God's will that she dies." 
" If she dies it will be nobody's will but yours. 
You will be responsible." 

" Perhaps it may be the better if she dies. There 
is not to me any way that I can raise her as you 
tell me a girl ought to be. I myself have not gone 
in that way that you desired of me. You have reason 
to put yourself angry with me ; yet it is not possible 
that she should be better than I. Had she been a 
boy, it would have been different. A man in Colombia 
does not suffer so much as we women have to. For 
him always there is some way, but for us what is 
there? Never have I in my life known what it is to 
have someone love me as you love your children, 
never do I have a home anywhere. Why do I bring 
up another girl to the life we women have in our 
country? And how do I raise her at all when there 
is to me no money, no home, no work? With her it 
is not possible for me to locate myself in any house. 
What do I?" 



166 THE LEAST OF THESE 

God pity us, what can I answer to that? There 
is no answer, and I remain silent while Elvira, ever 
before stoical, wipes the tears from her flushed face 
with her frayed sleeve. 

" However, Elvira," I resume after a little, 
" nothing gives you the right to kill your child, as 
you know that you are doing. Perhaps it is not 
yet too late to save the baby's life. If you will take 
it to Dr. Blanco I will pay for the consultation 
and the medicines he tells you to get. You know the 
arrangement that we always have with him for cases 
like yours." 

" Yes, Sefiora Mauda, that thing I know, but it is 
not possible for me that I go tonight. I have to 
wash these things for the little one, and without 
doubt she cries now. There I leave her alone on the 
ground in that hut." 

" Then go back to her at once," I commanded as 
I handed her some things. " Take these clean gar- 
ments, bathe her quickly in warm water, wrap her 
immediately in this towel, then fasten this woolen 
band about her abdomen and take her directly to 
the doctor. When he says that she may have food, 
you nurse her ; under no condition give her anything 
from a bottle again." 

She hurried off, but I felt almost certain that she 
would not carry out my instructions as it was evi- 
dent that she did not wish her child to live. 

This is probably the most common method em- 
ployed by these mothers for the putting away of 
their little ones — just to give the child polluted milk 
from a bottle that is never washed, through a nipple 
filthy and poisonous from decayed milk. 

A week later as I sat on the edge of the bed work- 
ing button-holes, while from time to time I rescued 



ELVIRA 167 

one of my rollicking babies from rolling off the bed 
where they were playing, Elvira stopped at the open 
barred window. One glance at her revealed that she 
was neatly dressed in a black lawn, her glossy hair 
tied back with a black ribbon. The baby, then, was 
dead. I was so deeply annoyed at the woman that 
I would not mention her child nor inquire after her 
own health. 

"How are the all of you?" she inquired in the 
subdued voice of a mourner. Then followed solicitous 
questions as to each of us individually. " La 
Senora Mauda? The illustrious Doctor? The 
Senorito? The Little White Angel? The dear little 
Baby?" 

" The baby is not so little now," I replied, laugh- 
ing, for I was very happy. Were not all three of 
the children well at once? A good fortune that never 
before had befallen us. " Yesterday," I continued, 
" I had the children weighed and Baby Boy lacks 
but five pounds of having caught up with his little 
sister who, as you know, is two years his senior. 
He is already an inch broader across the shoulders 
than she is. They look more like twins every 
day." 

Suddenly my heart smote me to be so displaying 
pride in my children before this woman. To be sure 
she had not wished her child to live, but could she 
have had the slightest chance of bringing it up 
decently she would have taken as much joy in it as 
any normal mother takes. I realized that the poor 
woman's tears were not hypocritical when she 
dropped her head upon the window bars and sobbed, 
the two children on the bed staring solemnly at her. 
She was grieving, as I understood, not alone at the 
loss of her baby but at the lack of all that God 



168 THE LEAST OF THESE 

intended woman to have. With all my heart I 
pitied her and all the women of her class. 

Yet my pity did not move me to accede to her 
request when she ended the interview by remarking 
in a tone whose studied indifference showed how 
much she desired it, " Would the Senora Mauda take 
me back in service now? " 

" Oh, Elvira, I am afraid not," I sighed. After 
all, the woman was a murderess — she had deliber- 
ately and intelligently killed her own child. How 
could I put her in charge of my precious youngsters 
in a city where any little carelessness or indifference 
might cost them their lives? 

However I kept in touch with Elvira and did what 
I could for her. At my advice she went about and 
did fine ironing; occasionally she was in our house 
for a few days' work. Of course the Missionary 
wears white suits ; but no ordinary dining-room girl 
can iron white suits so that any gentleman would be 
willing to appear in them. The ironing of the suits 
and of many other things was too often my work, 
but there were times when in spite of all effort my 
duties piled up until they were as insurmountable for 
me as Mount Aconcagua. On such occasions outside 
help had to be called in. 



XXIII 
MARIA JESUS 

A FEW weeks after the death of Elvira's child 
our Baby Boy was stricken down and the 
doctors gave us little hope. We fled in haste 
from the infected city to a little house on a hill two 
miles above the city. The house was a villa belong- 
ing to a druggist who was kind enough to rent it to 
us in our extremity. 

One evening I allowed Jova and Benigna, accom- 
panied by Maria Jesus, to go down town to see the 
fireworks sent off in celebration of some saint's birth- 
day. A few days later two policemen appeared at 
the door and produced warrants for the arrest of 
both Jova and Benigna. The girls departed, wailing 
loudly and declaring theirs the innocence of new- 
born babes. 

The long hours of the day crawled by but the 
young women did not return. As before her depar- 
ture Jova had commenced the Saturday sweeping, re- 
moved the rugs and carried all bedding out into the 
sun, as soon as I had dismissed the classes which came 
to me each morning, I had everything in the house to 
put in order, since it was impossible to pass a night 
in such an upheaval. At dark, just as the dinner was 
ready to be served had there been anyone to serve it, 
a third policeman walked up and demanded Maria 
Jestis. Very sober was she as she followed him down 
the hill, but her dismay could not have surpassed 

169 



170 THE LEAST OF THESE 

mine, alone with three sicjs children, one of them 
lying on what proved to be his death-bed. 

A few minutes later the Missionary, white and 
tired, arrived from his long day's work down in the 
reeking city. 

" Where are all the servants ? " he asked. 

" Three policemen in succession carried off the 
women. The two girls have been gone since morning, 
but Maria Jesus just left; you must have met her. 
Benito and the donkey are nobody knows where, and 
nobody cares ; one would be of quite as much use to 
me in the house as the other. What do you think 
is the meaning of the women's arrest? Is it some 
conspiracy against us? Who is doing it?" 

" I cannot guess. I will go after Maria Jesiis 
and find out." 

" Oh, I thought that you would help me give 
the children their medicines and get them to 
bed." 

" Oh, tuck them into bed as they are ! Don't fuss 
over it." And with this man's advice, he, too, 
departed. 

An hour later Benigna and Jova returned. They 
reported that on the night of the celebration when 
they had all gone down to the city, Maria had 
demanded some money from a woman who owed 
her and it had resulted in high words between them. 
The woman had this day- brought my cook to trial, 
— or to be exact had had her tried and then arrested 
after she was proven guilty. The girls had been 
called as witnesses, the trial held, and Maria Jesus 
condemned and sentenced to a month in prison for 
using violent and insulting laguage. 

" But I cannot understand," I objected. " How 
could Maria Jesus be tried and condemned and all 



MARIA JEStfS 171 

the time she know nothing of it? She has been here 
with me all day." 

" Always is it done that way. How is it that any- 
one could be arrested before it is proved that she 
is certainly guilty ? Now, of course, they take Maria 
Jesus. She it was that we met in the city behind 
that police and with the Doctor following on behind." 

" Then why were you two arrested if you were only 
witnesses? This whole story sounds strange to me." 

" So it is always done, but always. Certainly it 
is not that the Sefiora is not believing that which we 
tell her ? " in a most indifferent voice. 

" Oh, no, certainly it is not that," I hasten to 
reply. Although everyone knows that these women 
cannot be relied upon to speak the truth, yet it will 
never do to insinuate that you are doubting them — 
they • will depart from your service immediately. 
" Jova, you may serve the dinner which Maria Jesus 
has left prepared for the boys. Benigna, get to 
your duties at once." 

They hurried off, giggling and whispering. Ap- 
parently the affair had turned out to be a gala-day 
occasion for them. They had enjoyed a holiday, had 
been highly entertained by the trial, and the atmos- 
phere had changed considerably since their sobbing 
departure of the morning. However I wondered at 
their hilarity when I learned that they had not had 
a mouthful to eat since the morning coffee, that they 
had been shut all day in the close little, hot little, 
court of the jail, not allowed to go out until the 
judge was through with their testimony. 

The tale appeared incredible to me, yet it was evi- 
dent from their good spirits that the girls were in no 
trouble. I realized that it was Maria Jesus, the only 
reliable servant we had! 



172 THE LEAST OF THESE 

Two hours later the Missionary again toiled up 
the hill, too exhausted to care for his delayed dinner. 
His report confirmed the story that the girls had 
told. 

"I left Maria Jesus in jail, but I made her as 
comfortable as possible and I gave her money to buy 
her food until we can get her out. I also went to the 
home of the judge and was granted an interview. 
He says that I may take her out provided that I 
pay her fine, five dollars, and sign a bond that she 
will not use abusive language to anyone for a year." 

" The whole thing seems so ridiculous," I said, 
wearily. " I never before heard of trying a person, 
condemning her and sentencing her without her pres- 
ence, or even her knowledge of the trial." 

" It is the custom. Maria Jesus saw nothing 
strange in it ; she accepted it as a matter of course." 

"How did she take it?" 

" Calmly, as you might expect. She did their 
bidding at the jail without saying a word." 

" Did she try to exonerate herself? Of course you 
talked with her?" 

" Naturally ; before I saw the judge. She admitted 
that she had said all that she was accused of saying. 
She could not well deny it in any case when Benigna, 
Jova and a half-dozen others had all sworn to it. 
But she also said that, had she been given a chance, 
she could have proved that everything she said about 
that woman is true and so no insult. No doubt she 
could have done so as the woman who claims to have 
been insulted is a worthless creature forever hanging 
around the plaza. What concerns us now is what 
we are to do for a cook out here away from the city. 
I am willing to pay Maria Jesus' fine; she could 
repay that in service, so it would be merely lending 



MARIA JESUS 173 

her the money. But if I should sign a bond for 
twenty-five dollars I would probably have that to 
pay with little hope of ever getting any of it back." 

" Doubtless you would have it to pay, yet what 
are we to do? Luis used to help out in the kitchen, 
but he is gone. Benigna and Jova are both too 
frivolous to be trusted with anything, certainly not 
with the sick children so that I could do the cooking. 
I just cannot lose Maria Jesus at this time. I feel 
as though I must have her back and that at once." 

" Very well, I will sign the bond tomorrow, and 
you shall have her here to prepare the breakfast. 
I will talk to the woman and try to impress upon her 
the necessity of guarding her tongue in future. Per- 
haps she has learned a lesson ; we shall hope for the 
best." 

Before ten the next morning Maria Jesus walked 
into the kitchen where I was struggling wildly with 
kettles that would not balance on the fagots, and as 
she quietly took things from my hands, she inquired 
about the baby. I called Benito and together we 
packed the baskets and kettles with the hot food that 
the man carried to the city each midday for the boys 
and the Missionary. Never once did she mention 
her imprisonment to me, which showed me what a 
depth of humiliation she suffered from it. A few 
weeks later when I offered her the wages of the 
month, she shook her head and with face averted 
asked me to hand the money to the Doctor. I under- 
stood that she was paying back the five dollars of 
her fine, exactly two months of her wages. 

We were never called upon to pay the bond, 
although I learned that the woman who had brought 
on the trial often followed Maria Jesus in the plaza 
calling after her, directing attention to her, teasing 



174 THE LEAST OF THESE 

her, in an effort to provoke my cook to repeat her 
offense. 

Our door is bolted and barred at nine each evening. 
The servants and boarding boys are locked inside the 
house with us and it is almost as impossible for them 
to get out as it would be to escape from penitentiary. 
There is but one door; the few windows are encased 
by iron bars an inch thick. In the little house on 
the hill where we were for that month of August, 
there was a tiny solar, enclosed by a mud wall three 
feet thick, six feet high, roofed with brick tiles. 

One evening, a night or two before Baby Boy's 
death, Benigna asked permission to go down to the 
city. 

" At this time of night and alone ? " I asked in 
astonishment. 

" Of course," with an insolent toss of her head. 

" I could not allow it even if I did not need you 
here, and I should think that you could see that I 
do need you here." 

She said nothing but a half hour later little 
Benito reported that Benigna had scaled the wall, 
scrambled down on the other side and was running 
down the hill towards the city. 

The next morning she appeared and went silently 
and doggedly about her work, as though she chal- 
lenged me to call her to account. I knew that she 
would have some plausible excuse invented, but in 
the stress of the hour I scarcely gave a thought to 
her desertion. She did her work well, was as kind 
and thoughtful with the children as usual, as 
methodical and careful with their belongings. 

A few days later I had no further need of a nurse 
girl and I dismissed Benigna, an event which she was 
probably anticipating when she disobeyed me. 



xxiy 

JOVA 

TWO children, Maria Jesus, Jova, Benito and 
the boarding boys, together with the cow and 
the donkey, went back with us to the city. 

Jova was quick and strong; she could get through 
with more work than any other girl I ever had in 
her position. She was a high-spirited creature, who 
should have had some amusement, some play, such as 
all healthy young things demand. There was noth- 
ing of the sort for her. 

I had made several attempts to teach my women 
to read, or to sew, but always there had been inter- 
ruptions and lack of time for the lessons. We have 
had two or three servants in the house who could 
read creditably and who took delight in reading to 
the others, as they enjoyed the adulation of an admir- 
ing group hanging breathlessly upon their words. 

After our return to the city, Jova made a practice 
of bringing the stocking basket, of an evening, and 
of sitting on a stool at my feet to receive instruction 
in darning and sewing, in morals and religion, while 
I wrote letters or balanced accounts. She was always 
quiet in my presence, uncommunicative. 

One evening she minced into the room, her fat 
round feet squeezed into a pair of high-heeled shoes. 
I gazed at her in astonishment as she laughingly 
grabbed at the chairs and table in an effort to keep 
her balance and to walk a few steps. High-heeled 

175 



176 THE LEAST OF THESE 

kid shoes on feet that had never known confinement 
of any sort! 

" Child, where did you get those? " I cried. 

" A friend presents these to me," she replied with 
a giggle. 

My sad heart was heavier than usual as I looked 
at her in silence. These girls are too good to throw 
away their lives in this fashion. I tried to explain 
to the eager girl, disappointed at my lack of admi- 
ration for her beautiful shoes, just why I could not 
approve of them. 

It is as difficult to show these girls how we look 
at these things as it is to make my reader under- 
stand their viewpoint. Marriage to them means a 
luxury that belongs only to the rich. They know 
it is no more possible for them than the possession 
of an aeroplane. Entering into these connections, as 
concubine wives, holds all the charm and expectant 
happiness that a legitimate marriage does with our 
young people. With no sentiment in the community 
against this sort of thing, with life empty of all 
that life should hold for them, is it any wonder 
that they break the seventh commandment? Yet if 
anyone thinks that these girls are not sinning in 
breaking the commandment he is deceiving himself. 
Surely the whip and lash of suffering that falls so 
sharply upon these young shoulders can be but the 
punishment that follows the blister of sin. God 
knows they sin, they know they sin. Who is respon- 
sible that these millions of fresh young souls are lost 
to bitterness and death before they are fairly born? 

Several years had passed since the Missionary had 
been able to leave his work to attend any of the 
annual meetings held in the older mission stations. 
We are alone in our station, ten days from the near- 



''Mm ' 




JOVA 177 

est missionaries, and with no one to whom to turn 
over the work during any absence. 

A month after Baby Boy left us, the Colombia 
mission held its conference at our coast city, and I 
insisted upon the Missionary going down to attend 
the meeting. 

" How can I go now and leave you at this time 
with the school and everything else to look after 
alone ? " he asked. 

" It will be better for me to be obliged to hurry 
from one thing to another," I replied. 

He finally consented to go. A short cheery tele- 
gram nearly every day of the twelve spent on the 
downward trip allayed our fears as to his safety. A 
week spent in conference with the other missionaries, 
and he sent the message, " Just embarking, return 
trip. Home in two weeks." 

As I read the telegram to Small Son I remarked, 
" The next point from which he will send is 
Magangue. He will be there in three days." 

The third day, I began to look for the telegram. 
The fourth day, I sent Benito to the telegraph office 
to ask if a message had come and they had forgotten 
to send it to me. The fifth day, Benito was 
despatched twice upon the same errand. The sixth 
day, I myself went to the office. No, there had been 
no message for the honorable Seiiora since the last 
one sent from Barranquilla. 

" Are the wires down again ? Has it stormed in 
the jungle and destroyed the lines so that no mes- 
sages get through? " 

"No, Senora, we have messages from the coast 
constantly. Look you, here is one that has come 
for the Senora Victoria from her son. See what it 
says." 



178 THE LEAST OF THESE 

" Thank you, I do not care to see what it says. 
If a message comes for me will you send it over 
immediately? If it arrives in the night, I will pay 
the extra for night delivery." 

" Yes, Sefiora, be sure that it will be done." 

I turned to leave the office. 

" Oh, by the way," I began, as I again turned to 
the window, " has there been any news of a wreck 
on the Magdalena? No boat has suffered disaster 
lately?" 

" No, Sefiora. The river is low, but no boat has 
been wrecked these six months." 

Of course the wireless telephone communicated to 
everyone that the Missionary had started up the 
river., had not been heard from since, and that the 
Sefiora Mauda was too worried to eat or sleep. 
Friends flocked in; came before dark and stayed 
until eleven o'clock at night, until twelve o'clock, 
until one o'clock. Before daylight the ponderous 
door-bell rent the air with its murderous tones and 
when Benito scudded through the corridors on a run 
to receive the expected telegram, he was confronted 
by some servant sent by a solicitous friend to 
inquire, " Has the Sefiora Mauda yet heard from the 
Doctor ? This night did she sleep ? " 

Seven, eight, nine days, dragged by their blighting 
length, followed by their endless nights. Market 
lists were prepared, purchases inspected, laundry 
counted, recounted, ironed and counted again, two 
ailing children, with their hourly demands attended 
to, a sick boarder waited upon, classes taught from 
seven in the morning until four in the afternoon, 
money paid out, money received in, five account books 
carefully watched, peace preserved between boarders, 
— and under and over and around it all the constant 



JOVA 179 

listening for the telegraph boy and the frequent 
despatching of Benito to the office. 

It came at last — the telegram — signed by a 
strange name. Missionary sick, malignant fever, 
little hope, no doctor on ship, none nearer than 
Honda, too ill to be put off at Puerto Wilches, would 
be taken up to Honda. 

M In three days the Senora hears from Honda. 
Be glad that he lives today," thus my friends encour- 
aged me. 

Three days, four days, five days, six days ; it grew 
unbearable. The ship must have reached Honda 
long since; why did we not hear? It is so easy to 
die on the river in the heat and be buried on the low 
sandy bank. That soil is already hallowed by the 
bones of one missionary. We had begged for Baby 
Boy's life, but the Father in His wisdom had not 
granted our prayer. How could I know whether or 
not He considered the Missionary's work on earth 
done? How was I, a lone woman, to get two small 
children out of that city, get them anywhere, in a 
country where no woman travels without a pro- 
tector? 

My three servants were wonderful. I cannot con- 
vey to anyone an understanding of how kind they 
were ; a mother could not have watched over a child 
with greater solicitude or with more constant atten- 
tion than they gave me. Did I sit at my desk to 
work on accounts after all visitors had at last gone, 
Jova brought her stool and sat comfortingly near 
me, " In order that my Senora may know that I am 
here at the side of her should she want anything." 

" But what could I need at this late hour, Jova ? 
You should be taking your rest after so hard a day's 
work." 



180 THE LEAST OF THESE 

" It is here that I stay until my Seiiora is surely 
in bed." 

Both Maria Jesus and Jova followed me around 
with hot chocolate, their panacea, beseeching that I 
take a " little, little sip." Each Sabbath afternoon 
when I took the children to the cemetery to visit the 
little new grave, Maria Jesus insisted upon accom- 
panying me. At night when I restlessly walked the 
corridors, she left her bed and, coming to me, put 
her arms about me, and weepingly begged me to at 
least stay in bed. In those hours we ceased to be 
mistress and servant; we were anxious women to- 
gether, our hearts dead within us from fear. 

A telegram from Honda signed by the Missionary 
himself caused a joyous commotion in the Colegio. 
The day following, another message informed us that 
the Missionary, who had been taken up the river 
to Honda, was returning down the river to Puerto 
Wilches to take the mules for the overland part of 
the trip. " Shall send word every day," the telegram 
promised. 

" He has started back before he is able to travel," 
I remarked to the congressman who had been send- 
ing telegrams in every direction to determine 
whether or not the Missionary were alive. 

" Yes, undoubtedly that is true, and no doctor is 
to be reached until he gets here. You cannot expect 
him under nine or ten days." 

" But I shall expect a telegram nearly every day." 

" God grant they come, then ! " 

They did not come; not a word more came. The 
suspense grew intolerable. I knew that the friends 
who, by their experience in fevers and the use of 
their medicine chests, had saved the Missionary's 
life on the trip up the Magdalena had gone on to 



JOVA 181 

Bogota. He was alone on the down trip, on the dan- 
gerous jungle journey. There was no one to care for 
him, no one even to inform me if a relapse proved 
fatal. 

Nine days more were we tortured by this agony 
of suspense while the ceaseless demands of each hour 
had to be met. Then one night as we were seated 
at table and I was dishing up the dinner to the boys, 
we were startled by the click of a mule's feet on the 
bricks of the threshold, the zaguan, the corridor, the 
dining-room itself, and the Missionary appeared in 
our midst. A gaunt spectre, lashed to his mule to 
keep him from falling off from weakness ; three days 
had he ridden so! Benito and several of the boys 
sprang to untie the straps and to help him down, 
Maria Jesus rushed for hot chocolate, and we put 
him to bed while Jova sped for a physician. 

"The telegrams, oh, where were the telegrams?" 
I asked. 

" Didn't you receive them ? I sent one every day 
that I could reach an office." 

" What took you so long to reach Honda? " 

" Our boat was disabled and we just crawled 
along. At last we were put on another boat, a 
freight steamer, and finally arrived on that." 

" But why did you attempt to come so soon? You 
should have waited in Honda until you were 
stronger." 

" Tomorrow will be Baby Boy's first birthday, and 
I kept thinking how terrible it will be for you to pass 
it without him. I could not let you meet that alone, 
so I made a strenuous effort to get here tonight. 
God has answered our prayers ; He has returned me 
to my family once more." 



XXV 

COLOMBIAN SERVANTS 

DRUNKEN, yes, sometimes; thieving, pre- 
varicating, unmoral, — I have found them all 
this. These are the sins of the flesh which do 
so easily beset us and against which this people have 
no weapons. They are untaught, without standards 
of excellence, without ideals. Shall we therefore con- 
demn them? If a child be undisciplined, we blame 
the parent, we pity the child. If a whole social class 
be kept in ignorant childhood, whom shall we blame, 
condemn ? 

Drunkenness, lying, stealing: these are the results 
of neglect of the physical conditions in which this 
class exists and of the lack of the spiritual and 
mental development of their souls. 

I have found the servant class hardworking, cheer- 
ful under intolerable conditions, brave and loyal, pos- 
sessed of a beautiful humility of spirit, unselfish, 
ready to give away the half and more than the half 
of the little that they possess, loving and sympathetic 
one toward another, and even toward the foreigner of 
hated race and religion. These are graces of char- 
acter which neglect and false training have not been 
able to stamp out. I have found little blossoms of 
beauty springing up in the mire of the lives of this 
people ; they are fond of bright colors, of flowers, of 
the twang of tiple and guitar, they love children. Do 
not these show of what the real soil of their nature is 

182 



COLOMBIAN SERVANTS 183 

capable were it cultivated and enriched by right 
teachings ? 

Given a loving heart, a cheerful spirit, and a 
willingness to spend one's self for others to the last 
ounce of strength, — here we have valuable assets. 
Add to these a living, saving knowledge of the life 
and the resurrection of Christ, which shall supply 
ideals, and education, which shall furnish the means 
of attaining unto better things, and we may expect 
much from the Latin American mestizo. His heart 
is not at fault ; it is his ignorance and his neglected 
condition which we deplore. 



Printed in the United States of America 



TRAVEL, MISSIONARY, ETC. 

CHARLES ERNEST SCOTT, M.A., P.P. 

Missionary of the Presbyterian Church, Tsingtan, China 

China From Within 

Introduction by J. Ross Stevenson, D.D. Impres- 
sions and Experiences of an Itinerating Evangelist. 
Lectures on Missions, Princeton Theological Semi- 
nary, 19 14- 1 5. Illustrated, 12m o, cloth, net $i-75- 

A book charged with a spirit of faithful presentation, and 
furnishing a mass of refreshingly new material. It provides 
a striking and engrossing account of the inner life of China 
such as is extremely hard to come by in the long Hat «f 
books devoted to a study of conditions in the Far ISast. 

ANNIE B. GAY GASTON 

The Legend of Lai-chow 

A Story of the Old and New China. Illus., net 60c. 

During seven years' hospital service at Lai-chow in the 
Province of Shantung, North China, Mrs. Gaston often heard 
the "Legend of Lai-chow" told by Chinese preachers and 
Bible women in their native tongue, as an illustration of 
Christ's giving His life a ransom for His people. 

S. M. ZWEMER, P.P., F.R.G.S. 

The Disintegration of Islam 

Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 

"This book is by a recognized authority on. things Moham- 
medan. The author is one of the foremost missionaries of 
the world. The book is a challenge to the Church of Christ 
to more aggressive work in behalf of the Christianizing of 
tfce Moslem world." — Christian Standard. 

MARY NINPE GAMEWELL 

The Gateway tO China Pictures of Shanghai 
Illustrations and Maps. i2mo, cloth, net $1.50. 

"The topics are well selected, and each is worked out 
separately, with the result that one who has read the book 
could pass a creditable civil service examination on the cily 
of Shanghai and all that in it is."— N. Y. Mvening Port. 

ALDEN BUELL CASE 

Thirty Years with the Mexicans 

In Peace and ^Revolution. Illustrated, net $1.50. 

"The other side" of the Mexican character, as seen by a 
missionary— an old resident of Mexico. A deeply inter- 
esting book which reveals the land and the people as 
they really are. 



THE LATEST FICTION 



ELLIS PARKER BUTLER Author of "' Pigs Is Pigs" 

Dominie Dean 

A Tale of the Mississippi. Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, 
net $1.35. 

"Those who like Ellis Parker Butler's stories have a sur- 
prise coming to them. There is no reminder in its pages of 
'Pigs is Pigs/ or the other whimsicalities o«f the Butler 
Behool. It is a lifelike story filled with everyday people — 
small, narrow, prejudiced, self-centered people, as well as 
some surprisingly bitter ones. Among them the dominie 
mores, patient, hopeful, true to his trust. It is a story that 
comes dangerously near to tears at times."— Cleveland Plain 
Dealer. 

"Mr. Butler has told his tale well. If it could be circulated 
m the thousands of communities of the kind in which David 
Dean lived, it would pay for its writing many times over. It 
its in Mr. Butler's best vein, and is enjoyable throughout." — 
tf. Y. Evening Post. 

CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY Author of" The Web 

• ' of Steel, etc 

When the Sun Stood Still 

i2mo, cloth, net $1.35. 

A finely conceived romance of the days of Joshua. 

"Cyrus Townsend Brady has written another historical 
novel, a tribute to the Jewish people, showing them in the 
dfeys when they were valiant fighters on the battle field. It 
% a gripping story which will prove entertaining to those 
who like historical novels." — Post-Dispatch. 

MARY CAROLINE HOLMES 

"Who Follows in Their Train?" 

A Syrian Romance. Illustrated, cloth, net $1.25. 

The charmingly written account of an American girl's ad- 
ventures in the land of Syria. Into it are woven soft 
rwnantio elements, such as becometh a story written beneath 
the shadow of glorious I^ebanon, in a region of wondrous sun- 
sets, quiet sheep-folds and the scent of orange blossoms. 
Those who read and succumbed to the fascination of "The 
Lady of the Decoration," may anticipate a similar pleasure 
from this delightful volume. 

FRANCIS GEORGE 

The Only Nancy 

A Tale of the Kentucky Mountains. i2mo, cloth, 
net $1.25. 

A story of a Southern mountain-community, told with viv- 
idness and power. The author's long association with, and 
knowledge of these people enables him to write with freedom 
and fidelity of the region made famous by John Fox, Jr. 
Wancy, the central figure, is a real flesh-and-blood character, 
as Indeed are all the rest of the people in the pages of "The 
Only Nancy." 



BIOGRAPHY 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

The Life and Times of Booker T. 
Washington 

By B. F. Rn,EY, D.D., Author of "The White Man's 
Burden/' etc. Illustrated, ismo, cloth, net $1.50. 

Tins authentic I,ife of the negro slave who rose, against 
overwhelming odds, to the conspicuous position he occupied, 
is unique among biographies in American history. The author 
has succeeded in portraying this wonderful life with frank- 
ness and fairness and with fidelity to the times to which the 
history takes him. 

THOMAS J. ARNOLD 

The Early Life and Letters of General 
Thomas J. Jackson (stonewaii Jackson) 

A Biography by His Nephew. Illustrated, i2mo, 
cloth, net $2.00. 

Many biographies of Stonewall Jackson have appeared, but 
none has devoted itself to # the part in his life covered by the 
present volume. The object of the new work is to reveal 
something of his early life and to preserve in a permanent 
form such facts as will be of interest to his admirers. 

JOHN OTIS BARROWS 

In the Land of Ararat 

A Sketch of the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Freeman 
Barrows Ussher. Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 

A tender little biography. A record of a life of great use- 
fulness, splendidly crowned by its being freely laid down in 
the spirit of Him who "came not to be ministered unto but to 
minister." 

BASIL MATHEWS A Popular Life of the Apostle Paul 

Paul the Dauntless 

The Course of a Great Adventure. Illustrated, 
8vo, cloth, net $2.00. 

A life-story of St. Paul which strikes a new note and is 
told in a new vein. It paraphrases the life of the great 
Apostle, as it depicts a man of gallant spirit, faring forth on 
a great adventure. Without distorting the historic narrative 
the author fills in the blanks with brightly written incidents. 
It is a book of real and sustained pleasure. 

MRS. PERCY V. PENNYBACKER 

Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker 

An Appreciation, by Helen Knox. Illustrated, 
i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 

"Ability counts for much in an administration. ... .but 
tact counts for even more, and both of these qualities are 
possessed to an unusual degree by this sweet-natured woman 
tram Texas." — Ladies' Home Journal, 



MISSIONS 



S. M. ZWEMER, P.P., F.R.G.S. 

Mohammed or Christ 

Introduction by Rt. Rev. C. H. Stileman, M.A., 
Sometime Bishop of Persia. Illustrated, net $1.50. 

"This is a volume of large interest to those who ask, 
'After the war, what?' There is no higher authority on this 
subject than Dr. Zwemer, a lifelong missionary in Moslem 
lands. On all points of it his book is replete with first-hand 
knowledge. He writes to stimulate active and united Chris- 
tian enterprise in the present crisis." — The Outlook. 

PANIEL JOHNSON FLEMING , Ph. P. Union Theological 

• Seminary 

Devolution in Mission Administration 

As Exemplified by the Legislative History of Five 
American Missionary Societies in India. Net $1.50. 

"An exhaustive survey of missionary enterprise in India, 
•s that form of Christian activity is affected by the transfer- 
ence of powers, authority and responsibilities irom foreign 
churches and missions to indigenous organizations.''— Missions, 

MARY NINPE GAM EWE LL 

The Gateway tO China Pictures of Shanghai 
Illustrations and Maps, i2mo, cloth, net $1.50. 

More strikingly than any other city in the Far Fast, 
Shanghai represents the Orient in transition. In a volume 
of rare interest Mrs. Gamewell has contrived to catch and 
hold in her pages, its colorful panorama, and furnish her 
readers with a diverting and informative description of its 
origin, manners, customs, people, politics and enterprises. A 
book dealing with the Far Fast, of more than ordinary merit 
and distinction. 

CHILPREN'S MISSIONARY SERIES 

Children of South America 

By Katherine A. Hodge. 
Illustrated, 121110, cloth, net 75c 

"The latest volume of the Children's Missionary Series is 
full of descriptions and incidents of life and adventure i» 
the 'continent of opportunity.' " — Christian Intelligencer. 

Children of Wild Australia Children of China 

Herbert Pitts C. Campbell Bfrown 

Children of Labrador Children of India 

Mary L. Dwight Janet Harvey Kelman 

Children of Persia Children of Japan 

Mrs. Napier Malcolm Janet Harvey Kelman 

Children of Borneo Children of Ceylon 

Edwin H. Gomes Thomas Moscrop 

Children of Africa Children of Jamaica 

James B. Baird Isabel C. Maclean 

Children of Arabia Children of Egypt 

John C. Young Miss L. Crowther 



LIGHT ON THE GREAT WAR 

JAMES A. MACPONALP, LL.D. Editor Toronto Globe 

The North American Idea 

The Cole Lectures for 1917. i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 

The famous Canadian editor enjoys an established and 
justly-earned reputation. In trenchant and stirring phrase 
Dr. McDonald discusses the growth and development of that 
■pirit of liberty, just government, and freedom of individual 
action, in the light of its relation to the Great World War. 

EDWARD LEIGH PELL, P.P. Author of ' ' Troublesome 

—————————— — — ^— — Religious Questions" 

What Did Jesus Really Teach About War? 

i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 

Unquestionably war is a matter of conscience. But in Dr. 
Pell's opinion what America is suffering from just now is not 
a troubled conscience so much as an untroubled conscience. 
That is why this book does not stop with clearing up trouble- 
some questions. 

ARTHUR J. BROWN, D.P Author of" Unity and Missions" 
• • "The Foreign Missionary '," etv. 

Russia in Transformation 

l2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 

Years may pass before New Russia will settle down t9 
stability of life and administration. Meanwhile we may be 
helped to understand the situation and have a deeper sym- 
pathy with Russian brethren, if we study the conditions lead- 
ing up to the Revolution and mind ourselves of fundamental 
characteristics which will undoubtedly affect New Russia re- 
gardless of the immediate outcome. The book is most timely. 

R. A. TORREY, P.P. Supt. Los Angeles Bible Institute 

The Voice of God in the Present Hour 

l2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 

A new collection of sermons by the famous pastor-evam- 
gelist. They contain stirring gospel appeals and also special 
messages of enheartenment for those who find themselves 
perplexed and bewildered by the war conditions existing in 
this and other lands. 

JAMES M. GRAY, P.P. mM Dean of the _ 

' Moody Bible Institute, Chtsago 

Prophecy and the Lord's Return 

i2mo, cloth, net 75c. 

What is the purpose of God in connection with the present 
international cataclysm. Does prophecy deal with the world 
to-day. The author, Dean of the Moody Bible Institute, of 
Chicago, is well-known as a Bible student and expositor, 
whose writings find appreciation throughout the Christian 
^©rld. Dr. Grey's chapters have unusual interest at this time. 



BIOGRAPHY AND MEMOIR 



ERVIN S. CHAPMAN, P.P. 

Latent Light on Abraham Lincoln 

and War Time Memories 
Large, 8to, illustrated, cloth, gilt top, $4.00 net; 
Edition de luxe, in two volumes, net $5.00. 

This work is the product of more than half a century of 
diligent preparation and labor. It is added to the vast Lincoln 
library in the belief that it contains much fresh and therefore 
unpublished information relative to Abraham Lincoln and the 
men and event6 of his day. 

S. EARLE PURINTON 



Pptilin TriP PrPlVirpH With an Appreciation b*r 

retain, 1 ne rrepareu General Leonard wood. 
With Frontispiece, izmo, boards, net 50c, 

A remarkable study of the gallant defender of Verdun, now 
generalissimo of the French Army. Mr. Purinton's vivid 
analysis put9 its finger on the outstanding characteristics of 
the great Frenchman, and deduces therefrom lessons which 
might with profit be taken to heart by all. 

CLAR A E. LAUGHLIN 1IB , Author ef 

■ Everybody s Lonesome, etc. 

Reminiscences of James Whitcomb Riley 

Illustrated, boards, net 75c. 

"This most human book concerning one of America's best 
loved poets tells many incidents and anecdotes about Riley 
not previously published. There are alse clever noteB and 
fragments of verse which Miss Laughlin has preserved dur- 
ing the quarter century she enjoyed friendship with the poet." 
— The ConiHent. 

BISHOP ALEXANPER WALTERS Bisho{> of African 
" M, E. Ziott Church 

My Life and Work 

Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50. 

*TBishop Walters was one of the outstanding figures of the 
colored race in America, and this account of his life and 
work, completed only a few days before his fatal illness, 
will be readily weloomed by the large numbers of people 
who hold him in genuine and well-merfted esteem." — Cniaen's 
Advocate. 

JUNIUS B. REMENSNYPER, P.P., LL.D. 

What the World Owes Luther 

iatno, cloth, net 50c. 

All his salient characteristics are brought ©ut by # the well- 
known Lutheran paster with vivid direefness and picturesque 
fidelity. In addition, there are chapters of present moment 
dealing with Luther's attitude to war, and the debt which 
America and the world at large owe t© the great Reformer. 



MISSIONS 



ANDREW F. HENSEY, P.P. „ , be Coago m , lion 

A Master-Builder on the Congo 

A Memorial to the Service and Devotfcm of Rob- 
ert Ray Eldred and Lillian Byers Hdred. Illus" 
trated, i2mo, cloth, net 75c. 

A graphic and spirited record of the labors of .those devoted 
missionaries te the Congo, Robert Ray Eldred and his wife. 
Mr. Hensey displays his historical instinct, and has been en- 
abled to produce a book calculated to both find and retain a 
prominent place in contemporary missionary literature, not 
only as the fascinating story of selfish and untiring service, 
but as an informative work of reference concerning that part 
of the Dark Continent in which his subjects lived and labored, 

GERTRUDE R. HANCJZ 

The Zulu Yesterday and To-Day 

Twenty-five Years in South Africa. Introduction 
by Edgar L,. Vincent. Illustrated, cloth, net $1.25. 

The author knows the Land of the Zulus, as it was, as it 
is to-day, and what she knows she tells in a charming frank 
and interesting fashion. Due credit is given in this volume 
to civilization (considered merely as such) for the wonderful 
advance made in late years in the condition of the native 
tribesman of South Africa; yet there is nowhere any doubt 
in the mind of its author as to the Gospel of Christ having 
been the chief, and primal cause of his uplifting. 

SAMUEL GRAHAM WILSON, D. D. Thirty-two Years 

Resident in Persia 

Modern Movements Among Moslems 

i2mo, cloth, net, $1.50. 

"Not often does there appear a more important work in a 
special department than this of Dr. Wilson. Dr. Wilson's 
thirty-two years of residence in Persia and his earlier studies 
in Bahaism have prepared him for authoritative speaking 
here. It constitutes an excellent argument against those who 
think of missionaries in petty terms. Here is the book of 
statesmanlike thinking." — The Continent, 

S.M. ZWEMER, P.P., F.R.G.S. 

The Disintegration of Islam 

Illustrated. i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 

Dr. Zwemer traces the collapse of Islam as a_ political 
power in Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as the inevitable 
effect the impact of Western civilization has had, and is still 
having, on the countries over which it still holds sway. All 
this tends to the final disintegration and overthrow of Mo- 
hammedanism in fulfilment of a Divine plan of preparedness 
for the evangelization of Moslem lands. 



NEW EDITIONS 



S. HALL YOUNG 

Alaska Days with John Muir 

Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net $1.15. 

"Do you remember Stickeen, the canine hero of John 
Muir's famous dog story? Here is a book by the man who 
owned Stickeen and who was Muir's companion on that ad- 
venturous trip among the Alaskan glaciers. This is not only 
a breezy outdoor book, full of the wild beauties of the Alas- 
kan wilderness; it is also a living portrait of John Muir in 
the great moments of his career." — New York Times. 

S. R. CROCKETT Auth.r of "Silvn Sand.» <te. 

Hal'othe Ironsides: A s £f&££°,? ay§ 

Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net $1.25. 

"Crockett's last story. A rip-roaring tale of the days of the 
great Oliver — days when the dogs of war were let loose in 
English meadows, and "the gallants of England struck home 
for the King." — Examiner. 

FANNY CROSBY 

Fanny Crosby's Story &™£ e e £; 

By S. Trevena Jackson. Illustrated, cloth, net $1.15. 

"This is, in a way, an autobiography, for it is the story of 
Fanny Crosby's life as she told it to her friend, who retells 
it in this charming book. All lovers of the blind hymn 
writer ought to read this volume. It tells a story of pathos 
and of cheer. It will strengthen the faith and cheer the 
heart of every reader." — Watchman-Examiner. 

PROF. HUGH BLACK 

The New World 

i6mo, cloth, net $1.15. 

"Dr. Black is a strong thinker and a clear, forcible writer. 
Here he analyzes national tendencies toward unrest — social, 
material, religious. This he does with moderation yet with 
courage, and always with hopefulness." — The Outlook. 

S. M. ZWEMER y P.P., F.R.G.S. Author of "Arabia," etc. 

Childhood in the Moslem World 

Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $2.00. 

"The claims of millions of children living and dying under 
the blighting influence of Islam are set forth with graphic 
fidelity. Both in text and illustrations, Dr. Zwemer's new 
book covers much ground hitherto lying untouched in Mo- 
hammedan literature." — Christian Work. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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